Thanks #Digikey. I know you're optimistic about my projects, but let's talk about 5000 units after I manage to make use of the 3 I originally wanted to buy.

#electronics #retail

@dcz In fairness, tho, I am still occasionally amazed that DK will sell me one (1) resistor, 1kOhm, 1/4W, with nothing else in the package. Granted, the shipping costs utterly obliterate the total price, but still, kudos for making this stuff accessible to the hobbyist without an electronics shop in town.

@klausman I'm honestly surprised that electronics shops are not a thing in western Europe.
Back in PL you could get a basic supplier in a 100k town.

Anyone near #Leipzig, if you come to me I have enough basic components to share :)

#electronics #diy

@dcz Here's a few pics on just how cramped the place is. In most aisles, you can't turn around if you have a backpack on.

@klausman First thought: post office :P
I'm used to the model with 4 cashiers behind a counter with customers struggling to fit inside, 10 more students in the queue behind the door.

That might not have been the case in winter.

@dcz @klausman Honestly that's what shocked me. Town I grew up in (Poland) had electronics store, when I needed a capacitor, resistor, switch or anything else for the project I just had to jump on my bike and cycle for ~10 minutes. If we wouldn't have had that store, I probably would've never started messing with electronics in the first place.

First I moved to UK, I couldn't find any electronic stores despite living in Sheffield (where pimoroni is). Then France - again, nothing. Germany at least has hackerspaces and friendly nerds so you can find stuff if you look even just a bit.

Of course, shops in Akiba (Tokyo) beat any electronic stores I've ever seen (though it's clearly past it's prime time unfortunately, ground floor is almost empty these days). I really wish more countries had places like this.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyQfKN8vZaE
- https://www.tokyoradiodepart.co.jp/

@dcz they sometimes also make you swear you won’t use your parts in a nuclear weapon. I would love to know what kind of home lab they think I might be running 🤪

@jaseg They made me promise I won't sell the parts :(

Didn't mention giving them away :D

@dcz it's barely any difference in the total price and look at all the savings

@dcz Oh I know that model as well. I think they're common in cities with strong EE universities :)

@dcz Where I live (Zurich, Switzerland), there is _one_ walk-in electronics shop, Pusterla (https://www.pusterlacom.ch/), which is ... special. It's an utterly cramped shop with everything from resistors to kits to wires and sorted computer peripherals. But alas, their range of components is sometimes just that tine bit too small.

As for online retailers, there are Conrad and Reichelt, but both of them have been racing to the bottom in quality service and web usability.

@klausman @dcz Up until 2006, there used to be an electronics shop in Fontainemelon Switzerland (population 1650,) halfway between Neuchâtel (pop. 30k) and La Chaux-de-Fonds (pop. 35k.) My dad used to buy kits from there. We built an alarm for when the bathtub is full together.

@elly @dcz I sometimes wonder if SMT and tight integration killed a large part of the hobbyist scene.I for one can't do SMT since my hands are too jittery and my eyesight is not great, even with glasses. A lot of what "you young people" do with Arduinos and I²C and whatnot is just beyond my reach. I'll just stay over here and repair old hifi amplifiers :D

@klausman @dcz I'm not that great with SMD myself, I agree to some extent. With SMD you need a hotair, flux, often a microscope. All of that is *very* expensive (it took me years to be able to afford those tools) and raises a barrier of entry.

When I was young and capacitors in my mainboard went poof, I went to the store, grabbed the same caps based on specs, and replaced them with soviet-made soldering iron I inherited from my father (the one with trafo in the handle, you made "tips" out of copper wire scraps).

You can still work with SMD with unsteady hands if you're working with single-layer boards. There are super cheap (and cute) hotplates - you put board on top of it, smear some flux, tin the pads and place components. Heat + flux makes them align in correct places and voila :D
I need to get one of those myself: https://aliexpress.com/item/1005007009784987.html

@elly @dcz @klausman There used to be an electronics store in Cambridge but it burned down in 2019

@elly @dcz @klausman My experience first being taught SMD rework and then teaching SMD rework to others is that more often than not the real blocker is the belief that it's hard/expensive and not that it's actually hard/expensive.

Sure, don't go at it with a firestick and no flux. But a pinecil and okay quality flux will get you quite far. The only real price step is a hot air gun, but that's still <<100€ for an 858D or similar.

(note: i'm talking about low/medium density stuff here)

@q3k @dcz @klausman Yeah, "regular" SMD is still fairly sane. If you want to fix/rework something like a laptop mainboard though, well... good luck. I killed one Radxa X4 while removing the SPI chip

@q3k @elly @dcz @klausman was really suprised the first time i saw a power ic slurp itself into alignment on my chromebook last year (or was it this year? i cant remember)

i was thinking "Wow! they actually do that??? just like in the videos???" and the chip did.

@robot @q3k @elly @dcz Sometimes, surface tension is A Friend.

@elly @klausman I built myself a hot plate out of an old kettle (don't. even. bother.) and it's so much nicer than THT that now all my designs are using SMD.

All the fiddling with holding wires in place is gone, now I nudge the little bastards into place instead. I hate it less. There's suddenly a lot more components to choose from.

Hot air station is something I rarely need for my own designs.

@elly @klausman And if you have a resin printer, it's a lot easier to make your own PCBs if you don't need to drill holes in them.

@dcz @klausman ohhh, what sort of stuff? I’m like 50km from Leipzig and I could use virtually any passive components (well, among other things). no project ongoing atm, just asking