Electronics Suppliers

This is a reference page of the various suppliers I’ve used to buy electronics components and gadgets online.

Online shops

• Sparkfun Electronics
  They have a great range of prototype boards and some really nice breakout borads for hard to work with parts in odd or tiny packages. They also have a great community forum and some nice tutorials.
  They can be a little bit expensive as shipping is from the states, mind you with the way the Dollar is right now that shipping cost doesn’t seem so high.
• Lawicel
  These guys are based in Sweden which means European shipping is cheap. They have a really good range of prototype boards from Olimex, as well as many others. They also have some cool sensors and other Robotics stuff. Their prices are pretty good but it’s the shipping that makes things cheaper.
• Wouter van Ooijen
  Wouter has a great little shop with odds and ends that are hard to come by such as a whole bunch of pager motors and some cool mini joysticks and rotary encoders.
• HB Electronic Components (China)
  Every type of LED you could imagine at great prices. Minimum order 99USD
• Quality China Goods
  Batteries, chargers and torches including the rather excellent Ultrafire 501B, my current favorite (till the next one comes along)
  They also sell frickin lasers! I had no practical need for one, but when I saw this I had to buy it.

Ebay sellers

• Sure Electronics
  These guys have all sorts of gadgets and gizmos, but also a great range of components often in handy kits. They do a particularly good pair of SMD kits, one for resistors and one for capacitors that come in really nice tiny fliptop boxes that link together. Here’s a photo of my collection, you’d pay more for the boxes alone in some places.
  Only thing to be careful of is the shipping charges. Their prices are deliberately cheap so as to minimize eBay fees, I guess they make their profit on the shipping. That’s fine by me as the combined cost is still pretty good and you can always ask them nicely for a discount on large orders. Shipping takes about 3 weeks.
• Light of Victory LED store
  Don’t you just love the names of Chinese eBay stores. Mind you, I can’t complain. LEDs in all shapes and sizes for really good prices.
• Experimenter’s Discount Warehouse
  Loads of odd or hard to find components, often in huge batches but always for really good prices. Plus their shipping charges are really reasonable.
• Welton World Electronics
  They have lots and lots of LEDs often in odd shapes and sizes. Big, small, sideways and even backwards.