Where (besides here) can I buy supplies?

[Hiwatt25]

Would anyone like to share where they buy their parts?  Aaron has a good selection but specifically, I'm interested in a good online source for enclosures.  Most of the stuff I've purchased thus far has been from Radio Shack and some of it seems kind of cheap. 

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a place locally (Danbury, CT) for me to buy parts.  Granted I am new here so if anyone knows someplace locally, I'd gladly patronize them.  Gotta keep the money in town whenever possible, I always say.

[Stephen]

mouser.com


This has the largest selection I know of!    Has everything ..online service..data sheets.....prices.... CHECK it out!!!!

No 3dpdt or the essentials like Aron sells.... he is good pricing too..

[rockgardenlove]

www.smallbearelec.com

[Mark Hammer]

A great many of us here buy our supplies from Small Bear.  In part this is because Steve Daniels (the Bear himself) is one of us.  By being one of us, though, Steve has been able to maintain stock of all those things that people here regularly need in one place, simply because he **knows** what we need.  There may well be someone who will give you a better price on this thing or that, but Small Bear will generally have ALL the things needed to make a given pedal, from semiconductors, to passive components, to switches, to chassis, to stuff for decorating it.  Some prefer to get everything from him, and some prefer to stick to a couple of things (boxes, chips, etc.) from Small Bear and get large volume discounts from other suppliers for other parts.  Others put in regular orders for the hard-to-get stuff, and use local retailers for the I-need-a-12k-resistor-by-5PM purchases.

Steve also gets stuff made specially for pedal builders, like the terrific pad-per-hole boards, which are head and shoulders above anything else out there of that type.  Plus he gets stuff from other suppliers like the powder-coated boxes used by Toadworks.  Unless you order just before a major holiday, turnaround time is usally very fast with lowest feasible shipping rates.

[Peter Snowberg]

I get most things from http://www.mouser.com and http://www.digikey.com.

For most stompbox building, http://www.smallbearelec.com is the best way to go for the reasons that Mark just mentioned. If you're going to get any specialized parts that he carries then the tiny difference in prices between Steve and giant distributors like Mouser is more than made up for by the additional shipping charges for a second order from another place to save $0.27 on the parts cost.

Also, please don't forget that Aron offers some parts too and that buying from him supports this forum's hosting fees.

[Hiwatt25]

Very cool guys, thanks for the info.  Still new to DIY so I'm glad you guys turned me on to Small Bear.  Had not even hear of em'.

[Dave_B]

http://www.diystompboxes.com/wiki/index.php?title=Links

At the top of the page is a list of commonly used vendors.   

[Processaurus]

Small Bear is great, I love supporting self employed people that do good work.  With the occasional order out of many perfect orders where something got messed up he worked right away on getting me the right part.  

Recently I got some powder coated enclosures from pedalpartsplus.com that I'm extremely happy with.  Sparkley purple, yeah!Good people there too.  

I've gotten a handful of professionally manufactured effects PCBs from "Build Your Own Clone" too, that are nice and compact because they are double sided.  

[newbie builder]

+1 for PCBs from Buildyourownclone.com- they're great stuff. I haven't tried em, but lots of people also use PCBs from Tonepad and GeneralGuitarGadgets. I like to support Smallbear whenever I can (just ordered some parts from them yesterday!) but places like mouser are good for big bulk orders. Pedal Parts Plus also has nice powdercoated enclousers, but small bear is getting more and more of those too. If Steve Daniels reads this, the only thing that smallbear doesn't have that i'd really like is VERO BOARD! Since aron is on vacation I have no way of getting any for a long time but if small bear had some it wouldn't be an issue....

[jonathan perez]

ebay

[mac dillard]

Most of mine come from Mouser or GGG. Has anyone ever tried Newark in one ?

[Peter Snowberg]

There is also Circuit Specialists which is great for cheap tools, cheap caps, and cheap resistors.

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/


I've ordered from Newark in the past, but only when they had an exclusive or the parts in question were on allocation (*) by the maker and they had stock sitting around.

* = rationed by the factory before manufacture because of short supply and larger demand

[phaeton]

I can't say enough good things about Jameco for general electronic parts.  However, the *specialty* stuff, or things specific to stompboxes or audio circuits can *only* be gotten by places like Smallbear, or Aron's site.  I've ordered from both and can't say enough good things about them either.  Smallbear has the best perf, hands down.  I've even pointed non-pedal/amp guys on Usenet and IRC to smallbear for perf.

Futurlec is cheap but extremely slow in my case.  Order entered to parts in hand is ~30 days.

Mouser's website/online catalogue system is too idiotic for me.  I'm going to try to get a paper catalogue from them and see if that's any better.

[newbie builder]

Yeah that is the awful thing about Mouser...ordering takes hours. They do ship fast though, as do pedalpartsplus and effects connection (I ordered from all three of them and smallbear yesterday, got notification they've shipped from all of them but smallbear already- i knew smallbear would take a few more days though and that's fine cause I want to support steve and they have great perf!)

[Dave_B]

Most of mine come from Mouser or GGG. Has anyone ever tried Newark in one ?

I used Newark several years ago when I needed some Analog Devices chips.  They were on par with DigiKey and Mouser with regard to service, speed, selection, etc. 

Allied Electronics is another good one, especially for optos.  They'll even ship standard USPS if you want to save some cash on shipping.

[funkbass187]

www.futurlec.com i ordered parts from them and everything seems to be of good quality and their prices are very low.

[phaeton]

www.futurlec.com i ordered parts from them and everything seems to be of good quality and their prices are very low.

I've bought from them a few times and haven't really had a whole lot of issue myself (a few things were substituted w/o telling me before hand) but their reputation round here is kind of hit-or-miss.  Because of this (and the long shiptimes) I don't recommend them to anyone anymore.

[Noplasticrobots]

I've found Mouser to be easy to order from in general but it was confusing at first. When my requested catalog came, I flipped through it really quick and threw it in the bathroom. "Study time" if you will.  Also, if you run out of TP you can easily use some of those +1000 pages in an emergency. 

I reccomend Small Bear just to support the community. Steve is extremely easy to order from, and during an unintentional shootout with Mouser, his products arrived quicker than Mouser's; and Steve's twice as far as away!