Author Topic: Setting up Base in Slovenia  (Read 17795 times)

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Offline XaroRSATopic starter

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Setting up Base in Slovenia
« on: April 17, 2014, 06:46:05 pm »
Good day EEV Forum!

I am a South African moving to Slovenia in June, and I need some assistance setting up "base" there.
I am familiar with all my suppliers in South Africa, and know my way around to get stuff, but in Europe i'm gonna be a bit lost!
Can anyone from Slovenia or Europe comment on good suppliers that don't break the bank? and that are reliable and have stock?
I will be going into 3D printers, and electronics repairs for a start, and be looking for a job aswel(please pm if you have a lead :D )

I am excited to be part of this forum, and to be part of the EE community in Europe!

Regards
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2014, 09:53:20 pm »
Good luck. Slovenia is a black hole, no-one knows about it anything. I lived next to it, never met someone from there, and I cannot tell 3 facts about it. No-one else can.
Any Slovenians out there: this doesnt meant to be an offense, please make some noise!
 

Offline sprocket

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2014, 12:30:48 pm »
I'm curious. Not that I have any thing against slovenia, but it isnt a country that I would have thought of moving to if I was an english speaking immigrant moving to europe.

Any ways. The usual RS, farnell, Mouser and digikey are the main suppliers in europe. there is another company that I use regularly as well, it's a polish company calle TME.EU. Not nearly as big as the old boys club, but they stock a fair amount of doo-hickys and and thingy-ma-jiggy's. And they are usually cheaper then the old boys club.  Oh and you can try conrad.de, but I find them rather expensive, and I wouldnt call then a parts suppliers per say, more like selling all sorts of stuff to hobbyists, including some stuff in the EE area.

Any ways good luck.
 

Offline Towger

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2014, 12:39:18 pm »
It must be true love bringing him/her there.
As said before I have never met anyone from Slovenia. Plenty of others from 'behind the iron curtain' but not from Slovenia.
 

Offline eurofox

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2014, 01:18:08 pm »
I joint other members here and wonder why from SA to Slovenia, I have nothing negative about the country, I visited it once on a 2 days business trip, my taxi driver was a university teacher and spoke perfectly French.

On the top of that you will have to learn a Slavic language, I spend 5 years managing a factory for a Belgian company in Slovakia.
I was there with my family and I had to learn the language to have a "comfortable" life.
Learning a Slavic language is not so easy for us even if I was fortunate to be a polyglot and speak the most common western languages.

eurofox
 
eurofox
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2014, 02:47:48 pm »
Like others said: Farnell and RS-components are the big ones. There is also Distrilec.
I see Slovenia used to be part of Yugoslavia (which used to be a popular destination for going on vacation). If you are close to the Austrian and/or Italian border you might be able to get work from there as well. In most European countries people speak a bit of English.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline janoc

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2014, 03:27:57 pm »
Any ways. The usual RS, farnell, Mouser and digikey are the main suppliers in europe. there is another company that I use regularly as well, it's a polish company calle TME.EU.

Careful about Digikey and Mouser - both will ship to Europe, but they are completely US-based (no EU warehouses), so you will get hit with ridiculous shipping charges, import/custom fees and VAT. The customs and VAT varies between countries and it is UPS (or whoever they use to ship) collecting it, so don't be surprised by the total cost of your order doubling easily when the package arrives and the UPS guy hands you the bill!

Oh and at least Digikey will often give you trouble with credit cards and various idiotic US export forms to make sure that you are not going to build a ballistic missile with your $0.01 SMD resistors or a PIC ...

Distrelec, RadioSpares/RS and Farnell work mostly OK. TME is also OK. Then there are also smaller local distributors in most countries, it is worth to check those out first unless you are starting a big business and can get discount rates from the big names.


 

Offline XaroRSATopic starter

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2014, 04:08:55 pm »
It must be true love bringing him/her there.
As said before I have never met anyone from Slovenia. Plenty of others from 'behind the iron curtain' but not from Slovenia.

Nailed it bud  ^-^
 

Offline XaroRSATopic starter

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2014, 04:18:30 pm »
haha u peeps are funny.
Yes the situation is extremely 'unusual', but thats only half of it :O
But I can keep you all informed of what happening there once I have infiltrated this alleged "country" that no one knows about.

Thanks for all the replies, I am a bit worried about finding a job there, hopefully I can make it on my own doing some projects and repairs.
I don't like buying from RS (well here in SA), cause of the outrages price and min order quantities.
Ill keep scouting for some local affordable suppliers there.
If anyone from nearby needs a hand with some electronics etc ill be glad to jump in and help!

Cheers!
 

Offline Dave

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2014, 04:41:51 pm »
Guess I'll be the first Slovenian to join the conversation.

So far I have had the best experience ordering from Farnell UK. Shipping costs 5€ and the package gets delivered in a single day (provided you order before 5 pm).
You can basically order from any country within the European Union and you don't have to pay customs fees. :-+
Local suppliers here are a bit of a shame, they will treat you like crap, if you are not planning on spending several thousand euros (avoid IC Elektronika like the plague).

Which city are you moving to?
<fellbuendel> it's arduino, you're not supposed to know anything about what you're doing
<fellbuendel> if you knew, you wouldn't be using it
 

Offline XaroRSATopic starter

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #10 on: April 18, 2014, 04:59:23 pm »
Guess I'll be the first Slovenian to join the conversation.

So far I have had the best experience ordering from Farnell UK. Shipping costs 5€ and the package gets delivered in a single day (provided you order before 5 pm).
You can basically order from any country within the European Union and you don't have to pay customs fees. :-+
Local suppliers here are a bit of a shame, they will treat you like crap, if you are not planning on spending several thousand euros (avoid IC Elektronika like the plague).

Which city are you moving to?

Hi Dave.

Im moving nearby Celje.
Any advise on what to lookup there?
 

Offline Dave

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2014, 08:07:30 pm »
I'm from Nova Gorica and I'm currently staying in Ljubljana during the week (studying at UNI). I'm afraid I don't know much about Celje.
Let me know if there is anything I can help you with.
<fellbuendel> it's arduino, you're not supposed to know anything about what you're doing
<fellbuendel> if you knew, you wouldn't be using it
 

Offline XaroRSATopic starter

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #12 on: June 10, 2014, 10:33:30 am »
Finally arrived, what a beautiful place.
Still haven't found anything remotely technological out here, but its still nice.
Anyone into agricultural monitoring?
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #13 on: June 10, 2014, 12:44:02 pm »
Start a bed&breakfast and advertise in the country you came from.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #14 on: June 10, 2014, 01:49:20 pm »
Finally arrived, what a beautiful place.
Still haven't found anything remotely technological out here, but its still nice.
Anyone into agricultural monitoring?

It might be worth looking into-----I used to live in the WA Wheatbelt,& it was a fairly big deal there.
 

Offline zapta

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #15 on: June 10, 2014, 02:57:01 pm »
According to google Slovania is an awesome place:

https://www.google.com/search?q=slovenia&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch
 

Offline lovro

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #16 on: June 10, 2014, 05:45:31 pm »
Good luck. Slovenia is a black hole, no-one knows about it anything. I lived next to it, never met someone from there, and I cannot tell 3 facts about it. No-one else can.
Any Slovenians out there: this doesnt meant to be an offense, please make some noise!

well this guy is from Slovenia and he has a really nice/interesting blog ..
http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2014/06/testing_vesnas_power_supply/
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #17 on: June 10, 2014, 06:51:21 pm »
Hey OP, you have got to go to the Škocjan Caves!  (The other caves are amazing too... also the Coal Mining Museum.)
Don't forget to visit the future site for the brand new state of the art vacuum tube factory that they will build.
It should be finished in a bout 5 years (they need to pay off some more politicians first to get some permits)

 :-DD

caves -> coal mining -> vacuum tubes ... it fits. they surely are going hard there in slovenia.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2014, 07:00:15 pm by free_electron »
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Offline free_electron

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #18 on: June 10, 2014, 06:59:40 pm »

well this guy is from Slovenia and he has a really nice/interesting blog ..
http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2014/06/testing_vesnas_power_supply/

with such mesmerising article as
- vacuum tube collection   http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/articles/tubes/
- water cooled 486     http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/articles/waterblock/
- Z80 disassembler   http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/articles/z80dasm/

welcome to 'state-of-the-art' (at least in slovenia).

When i grew up we had to memorize the countries of the European union. There were 12. ( the twelve stars on the european flag )
Now there are 28 (with 24 different languages )  :palm:
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Any comments, or points of view expressed, are my own and not endorsed , induced or compensated by my employer(s).
 

Offline edavid

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #19 on: June 10, 2014, 07:30:08 pm »
Don't forget to visit the future site for the brand new state of the art vacuum tube factory that they will build.
It should be finished in a bout 5 years (they need to pay off some more politicians first to get some permits)

I think you are confusing Slovenia with Slovakia  :-//
 

Offline XaroRSATopic starter

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #20 on: June 10, 2014, 07:42:24 pm »
Yeah im looking into a few open-source monitoring devices.
Not too sure what the key measurements are in agriculture? I assume things like temperature,light and water levels are important.
Yeah, awesome place otherwise, need to set up my workshop and get building asap!

Finally arrived, what a beautiful place.
Still haven't found anything remotely technological out here, but its still nice.
Anyone into agricultural monitoring?

It might be worth looking into-----I used to live in the WA Wheatbelt,& it was a fairly big deal there.
 

Offline zapta

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #21 on: June 10, 2014, 08:04:08 pm »
[Don't forget to visit the future site for the brand new state of the art vacuum tube factory that they will build.
It should be finished in a bout 5 years (they need to pay off some more politicians first to get some permits)

 :-DD

caves -> coal mining -> vacuum tubes ... it fits. they surely are going hard there in slovenia.

South Africa GDP per capita: $7,096. Slovena's $23,702.  That's an x3. Can't be that bad.
 

Offline rob77

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #22 on: June 10, 2014, 08:25:11 pm »
for parts checkout T.M.E http://www.tme.eu/en/ - they're in Poland , but they shipping to all European countries via DHL (it's 4.9Eur - next business day to Slovakia - should be very similar to Slovenia ).

p.s. i'm from Slovakia - that's a different country - but the names and also flags are very similar ;)
 

Offline Shock

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #23 on: June 10, 2014, 09:06:38 pm »
I love chicken souvlaki.
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Offline M4trix

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Re: Setting up Base in Slovenia
« Reply #24 on: June 10, 2014, 09:27:25 pm »
This thread is hilarious. Ok, I understand those from 'merica. Most of them don't know where to pinpoint Europe on the map. But most shocking is that guys in Europe don't have a slightest clue about this part of Europe. Some facts, Yugoslavia is dead almost 25 years (thank God  :clap:) and we have never been behind the iron curtain or had any relationship with the Soviets since 1948.  :palm: Just my two cents.  ;)   
 


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