Farnell vs. Digikey

[mikeselectricstuff]

Re. the comments on Farnell vs Digikey pricing - I'm increasingly finding Farnell to be significantly cheaper for a lot of stuff - Mouser are also often cheaper then DK, comparable to Farnell. Seems to depend a lot of manufacturer, and in some cases the difference can be many tens of percent at 100x qtys.
Unfortunately DK tend to carry significantly more stock, so on several occasions I've cleared out Farnell's stock and made up the balance from DK.

[EEVblog]

Yeah, it's just pot really with which one will have the best prices. Newark/Farnell/Digikey/Mouser. That's where the likes of findchips.com and octopart.co0m come in.

All things considered, Digikey does seem to have the biggest overall range.

Dave.

[saturation]

I read of Futurlec, any comments?  There are some posts on the net quite bad, and many good.

http://www.futurlec.com/AboutUs.shtml

any "good" electronics store nearby asia? i believe both farnell and digikey will charge substantial shipping cost to asian.

[EEVblog]

I read of Futurlec, any comments?  There are some posts on the net quite bad, and many good.

http://www.futurlec.com/AboutUs.shtml

Only if you are a hobbyist. No professional organisation would touch them, as they aren't an official supplier for anyone. Most likely all gray market parts.

Dave.

[Simon]

in the UK digikey is so horribly expensive I'd not touch them, in fact do not have an account yet, unless they have that exotic part nobody else has, RS are just a bunch of wankers these days so I tend to use farnell mostly

[logictom]

I think I would use Farnell a lot more if there wasn't the £20 minimum spend, I always want smaller orders and usually buy elsewhere rather than wait for a full cart.

[Simon]

yea i use RS for emergencies or just go ebay or other small suppliers, usually if I need a few bits I can cook up and order for £20 with some imagination

[allanw]

I read of Futurlec, any comments?  There are some posts on the net quite bad, and many good.

http://www.futurlec.com/AboutUs.shtml

any "good" electronics store nearby asia? i believe both farnell and digikey will charge substantial shipping cost to asian.

Takes over 2-3 weeks to get packages to the US. I buy mechanical parts and random LED/LCD modules from them. Also their value pack kits come in handy.

[mikeselectricstuff]

in the UK digikey is so horribly expensive I'd not touch them, in fact do not have an account yet, unless they have that exotic part nobody else has, RS are just a bunch of wankers these days so I tend to use farnell mostly

It is always worth checking both - DK are significantly cheaper on some items, but much less less so than back when the pound was stronger against the dollar.
Mouser are also well worth checking since they matched DKs free shipping on £50 orders.
DK's parametric search also pisses all over Farnell's, and worth using to find parts that you then buy from Farnell..!

[EEVblog]

I think I would use Farnell a lot more if there wasn't the £20 minimum spend, I always want smaller orders and usually buy elsewhere rather than wait for a full cart.

That used to be a problem here, but now Farnell and RS Australia have no minimum order, and free delivery.
Awesome service!

Dave.

[Simon]

In the UK they used to have no mim order, guess I ordered too many small packs  , I think there is no minimum for business customers but us poor sods of the general public are as always in the UK screwed. well £20 is not too much to ask for a min order and with free delivery I don't mind, I could buy stuff anyday for that

[orbiter]

I don't think the delivery is free from Farnell's, it's in with the minimum order price probably

I don't use digikey at all either.

Slightly OT here but... Is it just me or does anyone else find Mouser a pain in the butt? I've got an account with them but everything I seem to want doesn't have a price next to it and it's soooooo frustrating.

I tend to use Farnells mostly, especially for larger orders, but for things like LED's, transistors etc, as a hobbyist ebay is a godsend.

[Simon]

yea I grabbed some 2N7000 off ebay at £2, I could not make such and order from farnell, I myself sell parts on ebay as buying bulk is much much cheaper

[mikeselectricstuff]

I just did a big production order totalling about GBP3K with  25 or so lines.
For equivalent items, the pricing lowest to highest was fairly consistently Mouser, Farnell, Digikey, with the biggest gap usually between Digikey and Farnell. Mouser were generally only slightly below Farnell, but Mouser seem to be less prone to scrunching up paper SMD tapes...

[Simon]

Well I've been looking at mouser and to be honest for the sort of stuff I get they seem to be no cheaper, i expect they concentrate on SMD prices so as to compete for manufacturers, I just buy a few through hole parts now and then for prototyping

[slburris]

I read of Futurlec, any comments?  There are some posts on the net quite bad, and many good.

http://www.futurlec.com/AboutUs.shtml

I tried them once from here in the US.  Good prices, but it took 2 months for my order to
show up.  While I'm just a hobbyist, that's too long even for me.  If I order from
DK or Mouser,  I know I'll have parts in less than a week even with the slowest
shipping options.

Scott

[saturation]

Thanks for the replies on Futurlec, I am very skeptical about their offerings.

I don't mind waiting for low cost parts I need to stock, but the supply distribution chain issue bothers me more, that is getting counterfeit or substandard parts.  Unless the parts follow the specs sheets we design from, it won't matter what costs are saved when the design goes hay wire because the parts won't work or simply fail after a few hours of operation.

[johnboxall]

Futurlec are OK, just stick with the simple stuff and you'll be fine. I use them for veroboard, hardware (spacers, etc) and 8x8 RGB LED matrix modules (cheapest I can find). As soon as you place an order with them, send them an email asking them to check the stock level and tell them what you want to do if out of stock. Otherwise your whole order will sit in limbo even if one item is on back-order.

For components, got to love au.farnell.com, they make my life much easier. Free overnight delivery, and if you order something that comes from another warehouse, they cop the extra freight charge. I can't drive, and living in BNE the availability of anything is severely limited, so they win for me. Anything else, I try little bird electronics - they now resell the Jaycar range plus a lot of other suppliers such as sparkfun and freetronics. 11/10 for customer service.

Digikey will beat local Farnell on prices sometimes, and they sent me a hooded sweater and some swag via UPS for winning a Twitter competition, so I like them as well.

[Alex]

Hi all,

I can confirm that Farnell UK still has a £20 minimum order + VAT, but no shipping costs. I have recently added ebay to my list of suppliers only for projects at home.

My general advice would be to shop around. If price is the only criterion, the more expensive the item the more time you should spend looking for alternative suppliers. I got my solder station from Germany directly (using an online translator) and I saved £200 compared to Farnell UK. Dont waste your time finding the cheapest 5mm LED though.

Alex

[Simon]

from the UK perspective farnell is the best, yes if your an individual you have to make a £20 order, hey they have to make a living and ordering 50p worth of parts that then costs 63p to deliver is going to put them out of business unless your a large company and make orders like that now and then for urgent testing but are also ordering thousands of pounds of stuff.

RS sometimes are cheaper if your after large quantities but seem to stock much less than farnell and will charge you just under £5 for delivery which is fair play if the prices are better and it's a large order, their new "parametric search thing" is a joke at best

Digikey in the UK are just taking the piss, prices are ridicolous so no go for me.

I've got the odd part straight from china and ebay can come in handy, maplins are ok for cable and stuff but really they are not to be taken seriously these days. rapid online can have the odd thing farnell don't stock and have decent prices but do charge £5 shipping

[tyblu]

This question is highly subjective and geographically limited. My opinion doesn't really matter unless I'm from your area, as both companies have comparable international front ends but likely different geographic pricing, availability and shipping.

[Simon]

precisely which is why I specified in the UK, I'm sure that in the US Digikey is probably a better deal

[Psi]

In NZ RS have free shipping anywhere in NZ no matter what your order value is, which is quite nice.
Dunno if they do it in other countries too.

[ArticCynda]

It should be noted that Farnell's new website makes it so much harder to find what you're looking for than it used to be. DK may be a bit more expensive, but its parametric search engine makes it in my opinion superior, particularly if you're looking for parts through a supplier (like connectors, passives etc.) rather than looking for part numbers obtained elsewhere.

[Simon]

Farnells new website is slow and buggy, despite using CS sold by them many of my part numbers are from RS but strangely RS parts don't show up in supplier links searches, I can't possibly think why that is......

[Macbeth]

Is this the oldest thread Necro ever? Have the big suppliers changed much over the last 7 years? Is Lazarus the new venture capital startup supplier? 

[Brumby]

Is this the oldest thread Necro ever? Have the big suppliers changed much over the last 7 years? Is Lazarus the new venture capital startup supplier? 

I was thinking of saying something myself ... but the discussion just kept flowing ....

It seems 7 years is nothing when it comes to suppliers.

[schenkzoola]

How about some old info for an old thread?

Back in 2014 when I was selling a product, I was buying components from Future Electronics (not Futurlec).  I found their prices were sometimes half of Digikey/Mouser/Allied.  I am curious what other people think of them now.  www.futureelectronics.com

Hmm... I'm not sure why this thread is in The AmpHour category.  Maybe it should be relocated?

[Brumby]

Hmm... I'm not sure why this thread is in The AmpHour category.  Maybe it should be relocated?

Reading the first post by the OP, it would seem the thread was created in response to comments made on an episode of The AmpHour at that time.

[schenkzoola]

Reading the first post by the OP, it would seem the thread was created in response to comments made on an episode of The AmpHour at that time.

Looks like it must have been episode 1 based on the date.

[Simon]

To be honest here is the UK it swings between RS and Farnell in a war over "making their website better" but both failing to spot that much of what they advertise is out of stock. It's easier to find out on farnell has it in stock, for some reason using any parametric search parameter on RS invalidates the "stock status" options.

[mikeselectricstuff]

To be honest here is the UK it swings between RS and Farnell in a war over "making their website better" but both failing to spot that much of what they advertise is out of stock. It's easier to find out on farnell has it in stock, for some reason using any parametric search parameter on RS invalidates the "stock status" options.

IME RS has never, ever been better than Farnell. Once you accept that Farnell's parametric data is poor and always will be, and filter cautiously to avoid omitting things that have been mis-classified, it's mostly useable, the primary annoyance being that you can't default to omitting US stock and out-of-stock items.

RS on the other hand is still terrible, primarily because it often returns out-of-stock items and can't show a list of results with stock levels
I've long since given up telling them what's wrong - they either don't understand or don't care. For a production order I often go straight to Digikey, and only look at others for high-value lines. 

[Simon]

Farnell do have the option to exclude non stock or US stock, the thing i like about RS is the fact that you can just choose through hole or surface mount, I don't know all of the case codes by heart and it just means i can cut out all through hole parts.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Farnell do have the option to exclude non stock or US stock

Yes but you have to re-tick the options for every single search, which is bloody annoying.

[Simon]

news: the thing is so buggy and slow these days you may have to do the whole thing twice anyway. RS have performance on their side and a couple of nice options, Farnell have a decent system full of errors as you say, if only they could merge we might get the best of both worlds but knowing our luck it will be the worse of both worlds.

[jpb]

It is odd people saying Farnell is cheaper than Digikey. I tend to use Farnell more because it has a lower minimum order but for most things I look at Digikey has a much wider range and because of this is cheaper.
A lot of Farnell stuff seems to have the £15 US order excess.

I guess it depends on what you want to buy, but what I've found is that Digikey is most likely to have something, next Mouser and Farnell least likely so often price doesn't come into it (you can only buy from one place).

As a random example, OCXOs, Farnell only have a few and they are all pricey whilst both Digikey and Mouser have a much bigger range giving the option of buying one (with lower specs) which is about half the price of the Farnell ones.

[Simon]

Digikey have the best parametric search and they tend to have stock, Farnell are cheaper unless you order from the US and have £15.95+VAT added to each order and of course shipping is cheaper. I have in the past told an assembly subcontractor to order headers from digikey at a higher price than Farnell but for being able to find them on farnell. Both farnell and RS have had plenty of feedback from me but again like others have said totally ignored.

[tggzzz]

One negative for Farnell in January, based on the email I've received from them. It is going to be a pain; it doesn't fit into my normal password schemes, so either I'll forget the new password or I'll have to write it down.

Code: [Select]

During January 2018 we will provide additional security features relating to your online account.
We will also be amending the way in which password resets are requested to ensure that the new
process follows accepted security best practices. When selecting your new password you will need to
ensure that it is at least 8 characters long and includes 1 capital letter, 1 numeric and 1 special
character. You can, of course, change your password at any time should you wish.

To help you prepare for this, we have also noted below some good rules around password choices:
  Always Make them strong and change them regularly
    Keep them a secret
    Use a different password for every account you have
    Use a mix of letters, numbers and special characters
  Never Write them down
    Share them with anyone
    Use passwords that are easy to guess
Now I really don't care about whether their password reset procedures follows "best security practices", but their password requirements sure as hell don't follow the advice from experienced security professionals.

There's an old security adage: "passwords aren't there to protect you, they are there to protect the company - by providing plausible deniability".  So, what's caused Farnell to think it is worth annoying me in this way?

[Simon]

Yes that annoyed me too, I mean what are they going to do, someone will order parts for me??? this password thing is bollocks and all they need to do is implement a minimum length, it make for easier to remember passwords that are just as secure. My most secure password is simply a short sentence, very long and with far more required attempts to crack than a short complex character password that is impossible to remember.

[schenkzoola]

Since I am in the US, I don't need to deal with Farnell all that much.  Since they are part of element14, I wonder if their password policy will affect Newark in the future.  So far, Newark doesn't need the special characters.

I like the passphrase idea as well.  Here is a TED talk about it:

[Zero999]

One negative for Farnell in January, based on the email I've received from them. It is going to be a pain; it doesn't fit into my normal password schemes, so either I'll forget the new password or I'll have to write it down.

Code: [Select]

During January 2018 we will provide additional security features relating to your online account.
We will also be amending the way in which password resets are requested to ensure that the new
process follows accepted security best practices. When selecting your new password you will need to
ensure that it is at least 8 characters long and includes 1 capital letter, 1 numeric and 1 special
character. You can, of course, change your password at any time should you wish.

To help you prepare for this, we have also noted below some good rules around password choices:
  Always Make them strong and change them regularly
    Keep them a secret
    Use a different password for every account you have
    Use a mix of letters, numbers and special characters
  Never Write them down
    Share them with anyone
    Use passwords that are easy to guess
Now I really don't care about whether their password reset procedures follows "best security practices", but their password requirements sure as hell don't follow the advice from experienced security professionals.

There's an old security adage: "passwords aren't there to protect you, they are there to protect the company - by providing plausible deniability".  So, what's caused Farnell to think it is worth annoying me in this way?

Yes, that kind of BS has been proven not to work. It makes it less secure, as people just write their passwords down.

One tip to make passwords easier to remember, try replacing some letters in something meaningful, with numbers and symbols, so "Spot the dog" becomes "$p0t th£ d0g".

[Simon]

I just use a short sentence, easy to remember but so long that any cracking algorithm will take as long as an 8 byte password with a few un-memorable characters in it.