General > General Technical Chat
Crazy Radio Shack price
floobydust:
--- Quote from: jrmymllr on March 13, 2024, 04:21:39 pm ---
--- Quote from: DonKu on March 13, 2024, 04:11:25 pm ---Rumor sadly says sometimes the Shack sold "seconds" - rejected components. It's a plausible cause for the failure of a few Forrest Mims projects back in the day.
--- End quote ---
I thought their parts were fairly good quality. Their enclosures were nice. The main exception I can think of was the 1/16" drill bit that was included in their PCB etching starter kit. It had a rough ground-down appearance with a jagged spiral groove. And it could be easily bent like a piece of iron rod. Needless to say it had no chance of drilling FR4.
--- End quote ---
Radio Shack did sell semiconductor rejects, for cosmetics or "blems" as their own with RS part numbers on them. Lots of Motorola discrete transistors. For a while they were reselling surplus parts from legendary Poly Paks and other manufacturers.
I didn't find a problem with the parts aside from the price, so we renamed it "Rip(off) Shack".
jrmymllr:
--- Quote from: floobydust on March 13, 2024, 05:42:21 pm ---
--- Quote from: jrmymllr on March 13, 2024, 04:21:39 pm ---
--- Quote from: DonKu on March 13, 2024, 04:11:25 pm ---Rumor sadly says sometimes the Shack sold "seconds" - rejected components. It's a plausible cause for the failure of a few Forrest Mims projects back in the day.
--- End quote ---
I thought their parts were fairly good quality. Their enclosures were nice. The main exception I can think of was the 1/16" drill bit that was included in their PCB etching starter kit. It had a rough ground-down appearance with a jagged spiral groove. And it could be easily bent like a piece of iron rod. Needless to say it had no chance of drilling FR4.
--- End quote ---
Radio Shack did sell semiconductor rejects, for cosmetics or "blems" as their own with RS part numbers on them. Lots of Motorola discrete transistors. For a while they were reselling surplus parts from legendary Poly Paks and other manufacturers.
I didn't find a problem with the parts aside from the price, so we renamed it "Rip(off) Shack".
--- End quote ---
And if the part wasn't a reject before it was put into RS packaging, in some cases they tried to make sure it was by the time it was opened. Almost the bottom of this page: http://wirehead.byethost10.com/upg/upg.html
"Device may be damaged by static" and they used white stryfoam :-DD
johnboxall:
--- Quote from: themadhippy on March 13, 2024, 05:35:52 pm ---They might have been pricey but at least we got a free battery every month.
--- End quote ---
Batteries. As a child and then an enterprising teenager with family spread around the east coast, I had a card for every Tandy [Australia] store possible. Could usually get a couple a week. After a while staff would transfer and they'd sort of recognise you, but ended up buying things too so it all worked out. Had wads of lay-by carbon copies. Good times. Oh well, back to work.
Alex Eisenhut:
--- Quote from: johnboxall on March 14, 2024, 12:21:11 am ---Batteries. As a child and then an enterprising teenager with family spread around the east coast, I had a card for every Tandy [Australia] store possible. Could usually get a couple a week. After a while staff would transfer and they'd sort of recognise you, but ended up buying things too so it all worked out. Had wads of lay-by carbon copies. Good times. Oh well, back to work.
--- End quote ---
Ha, when I was a kid I had "Battery Club" cards for every Radio Shack within biking distance. It was only for the carbon-zinc red cells which weren't very good.
The gold ones were great, I still have gold Enercell AAAs that still work.
EPAIII:
Hey, it's DC and brushless! That's a premium quality part. :wtf:
Who ever said Radio Shack was cheap? 1/2 W Resistors that sold for $0.10 each, qty of 1 or $0.03 each, qty of 100 elsewhere cost $0.25 at RS. Unless you bought the assortment packs which were 51% of some value that was never used.
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