best place in uk to buy parts

[prismrock2003]

hi just wondering where everyone in the UK buys various parts from as I'm tired of waiting longer to get them from Europe

[Scruffie]

www.bitsbox.co.uk down for a few days at the moment for family bereavement though but great prices and postage charge (£1.50 for anything) and they normally arrive within a day or 2, a decent stock of parts for pedals, maybe have to make a few substitutions/sacrafices though.

Gotta mention the store link up there for some parts though aswell ^^

There's also places such as Rapid & Maplin aswell but I never use them really due to there high postage costs although if you have one near you.

[frequencycentral]

http://www.rapidonline.com/home.aspx
http://www.banzaieffects.com/home.php
http://www.rshelectronics.co.uk/dcconnectors.htm
http://uk.farnell.com/
http://www.bardwells.co.uk/default.asp
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/servlet/StoreFront
http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/503.html
http://www.musikding.de/

[ryanuk]

http://www.rapidonline.com/home.aspx
http://www.banzaieffects.com/home.php
http://www.rshelectronics.co.uk/dcconnectors.htm
http://uk.farnell.com/
http://www.bardwells.co.uk/default.asp
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/servlet/StoreFront
http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/503.html
http://www.musikding.de/

Cheers freq central - some I hadn't ordered from before.

+1 on Farnell. Tend to sell better parts and are a little more pricey, but very high quality parts.

There is also nikko electronics for ICs etc - although havent ordered from them before.

I can normally find everything I need from in the UK with reasonable prices... save for the 3PDT switches which seem to be cheapest on ebay.

[Yazoo]

Farnell does a good range and it's free postage on orders over £20 excluding VAT.

[connie_c]

Bitsbox is a bit limited for somethings but its pound shop section is worth keeping an eye on. Great bargains in there now and again.

[Scruffie]

Bitsbox is a bit limited for somethings but its pound shop section is worth keeping an eye on. Great bargains in there now and again.

True but they have a good basic stock, just remembered there's www.bowood-electronics.com aswell... known about them for about a year but still yet to try and order from them, decent prices but they do lack some fundamental stomp box parts.

[ryanuk]

Farnell does a good range and it's free postage on orders over £20 excluding VAT.

I've ordered from Farnell UK using my credit card on the web and I've never been charged shipping. I even called and queried this with them. No shipping charges.

[karesplat]

I concur, I placed a £5 order via Farnell's website only the other day and got free shipping. The charges and limits apparently only apply to telephone orders. I placed my order online at 20.00 and the parcel arrived at 10.00 the next morning via UPS courrier. An incredible service for such a small order. I've literally never experienced such good service in all my years of internet purchases (on the internet since '94!). Luckily for Farnell my orders are normally a bit larger, in the range of £20 to £30, otherwise I'm sure they'd make a loss on my custom.

In short, another +1 on Farnell. They also have the best range of parts IMHO anyway.

Farnell does a good range and it's free postage on orders over £20 excluding VAT.

I've ordered from Farnell UK using my credit card on the web and I've never been charged shipping. I even called and queried this with them. No shipping charges.

[anchovie]

I've found Rapid to be cheapest for 16mm pots, though they don't cover the whole range of values. Despite their cheapness, I haven't had one fail on me yet.

It's awesome that Farnell have become more accessible to the hobbyist with the free shipping as their inventory is brilliant - they have been serving industry for a long time after all. When I used to work for electronics manufacturing companies, Farnell was always the second choice after RS (with whom you really have to be an organisation with a bulk discount to benefit).

[ryanuk]

I've found Rapid to be cheapest for 16mm pots, though they don't cover the whole range of values. Despite their cheapness, I haven't had one fail on me yet.

It's awesome that Farnell have become more accessible to the hobbyist with the free shipping as their inventory is brilliant - they have been serving industry for a long time after all. When I used to work for electronics manufacturing companies, Farnell was always the second choice after RS (with whom you really have to be an organisation with a bulk discount to benefit).

Competely agree. Farnell have a better selection. Individual components are more expensive in many cases, but the overall saving is siginificant. The sheer selection of components is staggering. I also enjoy finding clearance bargains which have huge reductions, especially caps.

Slightly off topic - UK buyers, where do you get your 3PDT switches from? Cheapest I can find is ebay (approx. £3-4 each), but quality may be questionanable. Any other recommended sources?

[bigchasbroon]

the problem ive had with farnell is that a lot of parts were us stock and postage was £15.
I reckon we could help each other out more with the hard to get parts. I started an ibanez 301 flanger but i can only find the ics on ebay from hk in quantities of 10. If we did a coop buy or posted wtb in the for sale form we could possibly help each other. Btw im waiting on 100 2n5088 from usa got 60 spare at 7p each plus post. Bigmufftastic

[frequencycentral]

I started an ibanez 301 flanger but i can only find the ics on ebay from hk in quantities of 10.

I saw that auction too, and thought the same thing. I messaged the seller and he set up auctions for two of each chip, so now I'm set for a FL301 and a CE2.

[anchovie]

I started an ibanez 301 flanger but i can only find the ics on ebay from hk in quantities of 10.

I saw that auction too, and thought the same thing. I messaged the seller and he set up auctions for two of each chip, so now I'm set for a FL301 and a CE2.

If you have any problems with your Hong Kong chips, read this thread: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=59430.0

[anchovie]

Slightly off topic - UK buyers, where do you get your 3PDT switches from? Cheapest I can find is ebay (approx. £3-4 each), but quality may be questionanable. Any other recommended sources?

The white ones? Bought 10 of those a couple of months ago and haven't had any problems yet, some of those were used in builds for friends and have been gigged with.

Before that I used to get the blue ones from Hotrox.

[StephenGiles]

Of course if you live near Cricklewood in North London they probably have a good stock. Try going in the shop at 4:45 on a Saturday afternoon, present your list and watch the guy's face!

[Hanglow]

if you order a bunch of  3pdt's from the store here they work out at around £4 each and take a week to arrive.  I think they are about £3.30 each + shipping


Although I haven't bought any for a while as rapid do dpdt's for about £1.20 and I'm tight

[bigchasbroon]

I started an ibanez 301 flanger but i can only find the ics on ebay from hk in quantities of 10.

I saw that auction too, and thought the same thing. I messaged the seller and he set up auctions for two of each chip, so now I'm set for a FL301 and a CE2.

Have you  bought them yet? might have been as cheap getting 10 of each between us it is basically £10 for 2 of each or £24 for 10 of each. If you wanted to go halves on the 10 thats not much more.

[pandy3000]

I can't seem to get 5k potentiometers anywhere. Any one else have this problem?

[Scruffie]

I can't seem to get 5k potentiometers anywhere. Any one else have this problem?

Yeah the U.K standard ones don't have that value, just use 4.7k, 47k etc.