Sometimes you really do need the paper catalogs

[R.G.]

I was browsing through Mouser's newly gigantic catalog at lunch and happened onto a couple of things that I would not have noticed if I had to go look for them on the internet site. That slapped me in the face with why Mouser and others will still send me a four pound printed catalog four times a year. It's the fact that people see things they would not have otherwise have noticed.

In this particular case it was Supertex' high voltage TO-92 MOSFETs. Those of you who take the trouble to read GEO will have noticed my MOSFET Follies article, the gist of which was that there are certain places in tube amps where you can profitably and in good tone sub in a high voltage MOSFET for a triode section, freeing up the triode, or just giving you better performance.

I was using IRF820s, which are TO-220 devices. But Supertex grabbed me with their TO-92 devices. They have Pchannel up to 550V and N channel up to 600V, and dissipations of about a watt. If you want to replace a 12AX7 Follower with one of these, you can drop in one of the N channel devices. What's different here is that the gate capacitance on some of them is down in the 40-100pF range, not over 1nF. That means that you could start using them for non-follower apps, because a 62k ohm 12AX7 plate will give you a rolloff above audio with that kind of capcitance. So you might make a very linear phase inverter with a couple of these. And I'm sure they'll work for the stock Fender tremolo circuits, which see in another part of GEO.

That's just the enhancement mode devices. They also make depletion mode high voltage devices. That's right, they bias in the same manner as a triode. In spite of my preaching that a FET is not a tube and that replacing tubes with FETs one for one is not going to give you a tube sounding amp, lots of people seem to like this. So go get 'em. The Supertex depletion mode devices will bias up in a triode fashion, although you may have to diddle the source resistor value to get the right bias point.

All this because the catalog was paper...

[markm]

Mouser's catalog is so HUGE that it's almost overwhelming at times however, like R.G. says, there lots more to be found in the paper catalog and it also doubles as a doorstop! 

[joegagan]

great post RG!

i noticed the same thing a few weeks ago, I picked up a few musclecar and lowrider magazines, and I realized how fun it is to sit and actually flip pages and look at glossy photos on nice paper. I am on a pretty fast Mac , but still , waiting for a photo to load is WAY slower than turning a page in a magazine, and when i get to that page I have the equivalent of two really nice screens with two, three or 5 really nice images.

same thing with catalogs, maybe I'm an oldtimer but I think i can find most things faster in a paper catalog.

[$uperpuma]

I've made a few Mouser impulse buys from the catalog

[Ge_Whiz]

I can think of no better use for a rain forest!

[Dave_B]

I love the thing, but I do wish they'd make us ask for it.  I use mine a few times a week lately, but for my purposes I'm just as happy with last October's issue.  I've had one still in the shrinkwrap when the next one arrived.

[The Tone God]

There is another reason to still have the paper version. While I love the use of search engines there are still only as good as the data that is entered into them. Often different data entry agents will make decisions on the fly as to how and what information is to be put in the database. If the decisions are not consistent then the search engine cannot work at full effectiveness. Also if the structure of the database is change if the previous data enter is not reformatted to the new structure this can cause problems.

An example would be a search I did recently. I knew of some common parts that should work but I wanted to see if there were other options I didn't know about. I entered my search criteria and while I got some results I did not get the common parts amongst the results that I expected. I did a search for the specific parts and notice that some of the criteria I was looking for was inputed into the description field and not the parameter field. Since the parts I knew of we common and have been around for a long time I would guess that those parts were entered back when the database was simpler. When the database got expanded they did not port the parameters to their new dedicated fields hence my searches did not bring those parts up.

Of course there is the perusing of the book just to see what new toys there are to play with.

Andrew

[Processaurus]

I can think of no better use for a rain forest!

Yeah, I just went to their site and unsubscibed to the paper catalog, you go to "my account" and theres an unsubscribe thing on the right.  Though a company in the 21st century is clueless not to ask before sending out tens of thousands of four pound catalogs that'll pobably go straight to the recycling bin 60% of the time. 

Instead of the catalog maybe they could automaticaly present some new products that would come up when you logged in or browsed based on what individuals with accounts had bought previously.  Kind of like at the grocery store (with the discount cards) when they print coupons on your receipt that are creepily in keeping with the type stuff you buy.  RG, for instance, might be looking at PICs or something, and they would remember he'd bought MOSFETS a couple months before, so then their computer could throw a link or two up for new or interesting stuff in areas they know you're keen on...

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

It's pretty hard to get a paper catalog from Digikey, if you are in Australia.
Buying $900 worth of parts and saying 'please' doesn't help - I tried that

[MartyMart]

I much prefer recieving a "CD" catalog !!

[R.G.]

I can think of no better use for a rain forest!

Just to keep this discussion factual; paper, especially paper for catalogs and such, is made primarily from fast growing pine and other softwood trees, especially in the USA. The trees are replanted and regrown in many cases. Rain forest trees are often exotic hardwoods, and are far too valuable to make into paper.

[Meanderthal]

The trees are replanted and regrown in many cases.

That's mandatory for lumber companies. It works. There are now more trees in the USA than 100 years ago. And, the eastern hardwood forests are slowly recovering from the worst ecological disaster they've ever seen- the chestnut blight. Other hardwoods are 'filling in' the niche once occupied by American Chestnut.

I have 3 of the few American Chestnut trees left. Sadly, they have the blight. No cure, no way to protect them.

[JonFrum]

I can think of no better use for a rain forest!

Just to keep this discussion factual; paper, especially paper for catalogs and such, is made primarily from fast growing pine and other softwood trees, especially in the USA. The trees are replanted and regrown in many cases. Rain forest trees are often exotic hardwoods, and are far too valuable to make into paper.

And much of the paper used in catalogs is recycled - from other catalogs.   

[gez]

But where do all the Polar Bears go??

[TELEFUNKON]

zoo

[gez]

Fair enough, best place for them.  Pass the catalogue darling...

[ampman50]

I order some IC's on-line from Mouser a couple of weeks ago. I wanted TL072's @ TL074's I missed the suffix by one character and received surface mount devices instead of the dip packages that I needed. Anyone interested in some SMT IC's just email me and I'll send them out free.

[Chuck]

They work great as a child's booster seat in a crunch also.

A mouser and a digikey will get you about 7 inches.

[Paul Marossy]

In my line of work, mechanical engineering, I always prefer a hardcopy catalog over an e-catalog. Same with electronics stuff.

[JonFrum]

The convenience factor is huge. Being able to scan pages looking for the right capacitors is much faster then searching online. Sometimes I don't know what I want until I see it, so page-surfing is a great help to me.

And then it sits in the outhouse for the next year.