Why all the no stock at Digikey and stock at Rochester Electronics

[Analog]

So many components are out of stock at Digikey however the "Market Place" link shows them in stock at Rochester Electronics. This is new. Anyone know what is going on? I wouldn't expect to see Mouser stock showing from a Digikey link so I assume the Rochester and Digikey are somehow related. For the record I've bought from Rochester with no issues.

[langwadt]

afaiu Rochester is basically buying up old production lines and manufacturing "EOL" stuff and being  second source for other stuff

it might be that int he current situation manufacturers are not allowing distributors to buy stuff to stock it, but instead must order as they sell it

[tom66]

I'm wondering this too.  The Rochester parts are generally competitively priced though, so I'm not too worried.  Perhaps they have better arrangements with the manufacturers or are good at getting overstock / bankrupt stock.

[Berni]

Yep Rochester is in the business of keeping old obsolete parts available by running production runs of them or just buying up a huge sock when they go obsolete.

They seam to have signed a deal with Digikey that they can sell there inventory in there online store. The problem is mostly that they have pretty high minimum order quantities in the 100s, so it is not a suitable for prototype runs.

Luckily there is a checkbox in the search to exclude these so called marketplace products.

[Benta]

They seam to have signed a deal with Digikey that they can sell there inventory in there online store. The problem is mostly that they have pretty high minimum order quantities in the 100s, so it is not a suitable for prototype runs.

Why on earth would you make a prototype run with obsolete parts? Just curious.

[AndyC_772]

Stock qty >= batch size? That's about the best you can hope for given the state of the supply chain right now.

Given that I'm unlikely to be able to buy ANY of the major components for a given project in 6 months' time, the fact that something that's available from stock today is technically EoL doesn't matter.

[Stray Electron]

So many components are out of stock at Digikey however the "Market Place" link shows them in stock at Rochester Electronics. This is new. Anyone know what is going on? I wouldn't expect to see Mouser stock showing from a Digikey link so I assume the Rochester and Digikey are somehow related. For the record I've bought from Rochester with no issues.

   This isn't anything new. I've been eyeballing some parts on Digikey for several years and for years the only available stock was from Rochester. 

    A friend of mine has been in the business for about 35 years of buying up documented NOS Mil-Spec parts and has been selling them individually to people that need them for repairs (mostly military, $$$) and his sales have almost always been for one or two parts but a couple of years ago some companies (I don't know who) came in and they have been buying up his entire stock of certain obsolete parts.

   It's a certainty that there is a company, or possibly several companies, that are buying up all of the available out of production parts and are cornering the market on them.

[coppercone2]

I like that I can get metal can transistors and stuff to do original repairs with them. I don't mind the extra shipping because at least I can get the damn parts. That's the cost of keeping your old equipment to spec and not migrating your designs (that can turn into a endless money pit if you have something that works)

[f4eru]

Why on earth would you make a prototype run with obsolete parts? Just curious.

I saw this  in  3 situations.

1) not knowing about obsolescence
2) in the actual crisis, taking obsolete parts as (available and compatible) replacement to a newer part that's not available
3) A company I worked for bought an obsolete part in such numbers that one supplier kept the line going for 15 years (and counting). As the part was in all their long lasting designs, they put it in new designs also, in order to keep the numbers high enough to have the part "survive longer it's own obsolecence"

[Siwastaja]

They seam to have signed a deal with Digikey that they can sell there inventory in there online store. The problem is mostly that they have pretty high minimum order quantities in the 100s, so it is not a suitable for prototype runs.

Why on earth would you make a prototype run with obsolete parts? Just curious.

Because for the last 2 years, none of the classic rules apply. Any new part can be discontinued without any notice, and it's entirely possible to not be able to buy an "active" part at all during its complete lifecycle.

The only rule that seems to work is, you can buy what you can buy. Is it designated "obsolete"? If you can get it, it will still fly better than unobtanium active parts. Can you get it half a year later for production? Likely not, but the same applies to active parts post-NWO, so you need to be prepared for redesign for each production run, and stockpile for each batch.

[Analog]

I like that I can get metal can transistors and stuff to do original repairs with them. I don't mind the extra shipping because at least I can get the damn parts. That's the cost of keeping your old equipment to spec and not migrating your designs (that can turn into a endless money pit if you have something that works)

I guess I never noticed it because stock was available from Digikey. I had never even heard of them. I wonder if things will ever go back to normal. 

[james_s]

It's the stupid "marketplace" crap that everyone is doing now, there was a big thread about this a while ago. With Digikey you have to check the ignore marketplace checkbox EVERY SINGLE TIME you search, it's infuriating and has pushed me to shop elsewhere when I can. So many places do this now, Amazon, Newegg, Walmart, etc, they have all this marketplace crap that clogs their searches, it's especially bad for brick & mortar retailers where I want to search for items that are carried IN THE STORE. If I wanted to order something there are lots of places I can do that.

[f4eru]

Welcome to e-commerce....

[mikeselectricstuff]

Why on earth would you make a prototype run with obsolete parts? Just curious.

When you're doing a 1-off batch, or can buy enough for your anticipated lifetime needs.

[Benta]

When you're doing a 1-off batch, or can buy enough for your anticipated lifetime needs.

A 1-off is a prototype run? My understanding of a prototype is somewhat different.

[mikeselectricstuff]

When you're doing a 1-off batch, or can buy enough for your anticipated lifetime needs.

A 1-off is a prototype run? My understanding of a prototype is somewhat different.

I mean one production run, not one unit!

[ejeffrey]

Yes, Rochester has been around for a while as a source for obsolete and EOL parts at high prices for those who need them.

In principle I wouldn't mind digikey partnering with them in this way since they are complimentary to digikeys own business. In practice it sucks because the shipping and lead times are different and there is no way to toggle the market place products off permanently.  It's also not needed.  You don't really buy from Rochester unless you have already chosen the part #.  The parametric search is not really needed and I can just use octopart or search Rochester directly if I want to buy obsolete parts.

It isn't too annoying yet for me but if digikey keeps going this way I'm definitely buying less from them in the future.

[VK3DRB]

Octopart is listing Rochester as well as a number of high number of dodgy brokers. Not much Digikey anymore because usually they have zero stock of most chips.

A Texas Instruments TPS92515 which is usually 95 cents is now selling for around $82 each from Win Source and Utmel. Octopart should have tick box so we can filter out these parasites. Don't want to have anything to do with them now or in the future.