REAL Electronic Components - NOT Radio Shack/Mall

Factual Questions
1

Hi -

Long story, but I have a very expensive piece of equipment in need of three switches - the kind that solder directly onto a circuit board, and need to survive rough treatment. The original equipment mfgr no longer supports these, and Allied Radio got bought out (destroyed by Tandy when it wanted the retail electronic market to its Radio Shack division).

Does anyone know of a supplier of such parts? Google goes crazy with all versions of PCB/Board/circuit board/, and trying to go through every site which sells switches would be a bit time-consuming.

Thanks!

2

digikey and mouser both have large selections. jameco is good though smaller.

allied electronics still exists.

3

Carlton Bates has some component parts. I just searched for capacitors and resistors. They had both of them.

We have a Carlton Bates in our city. I’ve bought a few things as a walk in customer. They are all over the country. They also have a web site. They are not a hobbyist store at all. They focus on Industrial and Commercial Electronics.
http://www.carlton-bates.com/products.shtml

4

parts express might have them too.

5

I have used Allied Electronics twice in the past few months and they were very prompt.

6

Try google “new old stock electronics” or “NOS electronics”

NOS is sometimes the only source for tubes, transformers, relays etc. Once NOS runs dry people restoring antique equipment will be in serious trouble. I recently got my grandmothers old Delco restored. A service tech at work did it as a side line business. He replaced all the paper capacitors, check the resistors for tolerance etc, and replaced the audio amplifier tube (it would fade out after 30 minutes). Plays perfect now.

7

As I mentioned over here, Allied is alive and well after their divorce from Radio Shack.

8

Beyond web/mail order, most larger cities will have some sort of electronic supplier. Albuquerque has two for example. They are mainly B-B, and don’t keep consumer oriented hours. They don’t have digikey like stock, but are miles ahead of RS, even when they actually had stuff.

If you are in new england, or the bay area, I have heard there are some mind blowing places.

9

I would only look at Newark Electronics, Digi-Key, and Mouser.

Sounds like you may need MIL-STD switches.

What vintage is this piece of equipment? Can you provide more information about the switches, such as manufacturer, part no, etc.? If not, a photo would be good.

Also, what current is going through the switches? What voltage are they switching? Are they switching low-level signals (sensor signals, digital signals, etc.), or do they switch power to something? This is important, because you do not want to use a switch designed for power switching in a low-level application, and vice-versa.

10

I’ll third digikey and Mouser. I usually use Mouser and they have never given me anything to complain about.

11

Unless, of course, these are really old components. In which case:

  1. The OP will need to check with electronic surplus vendors, or
  2. The OP will have to find the best modern substitute from Digi-Key, Mouser, etc.
12

I get good stuff from these guys:

http://www.bgmicro.com/

Good customer service, too.

13

Mouser is really good.

If you want some discount/surplus electronics and components, http://allelectronics.com/ has some interesting stuff.