What have you designed lately, that entitles you to provide advice in this matter?
Sorry, I find your post patronizing.
Prices never seem to come back down much on anything after a “temporary” crisis. It’s always an excuse to raise prices permanently, more than it would from just inflation.
I used to look in the big paper catalogue of my local parts shop, design with whatever was in the catalogue and go there to buy the parts, only to find out that the catalogue was not up to date and some essential part was missing, or the N750 capacitors in the catalogue were X7R (and hence nonlinear) in reality.
Nowadays I can't do that anymore because they have no big paper catalogue anymore. It's nice that the shop itself still exists, though.
Interesting Thread. I started with DIY electronics as a hobby about 2015. It took some time to learn how to order the correct parts. I always ended up with wrong lead spacings and so on. After that I experienced that even "big" distributors in Germany also sell fake parts while you can find original parts in small DIY electronics shops. A german guy offered quads of precisely matched 2sk170s for about 14 euros but they sold out fast.
After some time I realized that Mouser and Digikey offer free shipping on orders over 50 Euros. And that they are offering a solid warranty not to sell fake parts.
This days I ordered some parts for Jan Diddens Autoranger kit. The only part that was out of stock at both Mouser and Digikey was the OPA1656. It was said to be delivered by Christmas, but arrived yesterday.
The main order from Digikey was placed on Friday evening (european time) and was delivered by UPS on monday morning. I could not be happier.
Conclusion: hunting for BOM parts doesn't frustrate me too much, because I don't know how easy it may have been in the past. I only faced the times of "obsolete", "out of stock", "end of life" parts..
After some time I realized that Mouser and Digikey offer free shipping on orders over 50 Euros. And that they are offering a solid warranty not to sell fake parts.
This days I ordered some parts for Jan Diddens Autoranger kit. The only part that was out of stock at both Mouser and Digikey was the OPA1656. It was said to be delivered by Christmas, but arrived yesterday.
The main order from Digikey was placed on Friday evening (european time) and was delivered by UPS on monday morning. I could not be happier.
Conclusion: hunting for BOM parts doesn't frustrate me too much, because I don't know how easy it may have been in the past. I only faced the times of "obsolete", "out of stock", "end of life" parts..
At least this way our lives as design engineers don't get boring, haha! We had a strategy meeting at work and the consensus was, as a small scale manufacturer, we have to switch to more modularity of everything as well as strive for less complexity, avoiding "special function" commodity parts. Many unplanned hours of work ahead and big extra cost.
These days i only build stuff i have the parts for. Rarely ordering new.
During the covid i organized all the resistors into small bags, so i have all the values for small low wattage. No problem there. Got big box of higher wattage power resistors, most common values. Can parallel or put in series if needed.
Capacitors, that's different story. I got most typical values for low voltages, but not at higher volts.
For line level stuff i got all i need, well suplied.
Most common small transistors i got plenty spare, so all good there.
I am low on power mosfets, but that is expected.
Got plenty of power bjt's.
Transformers i do not stock, but i do not see shortage.
So no real issue here.
Stay safe.
During the covid i organized all the resistors into small bags, so i have all the values for small low wattage. No problem there. Got big box of higher wattage power resistors, most common values. Can parallel or put in series if needed.
Capacitors, that's different story. I got most typical values for low voltages, but not at higher volts.
For line level stuff i got all i need, well suplied.
Most common small transistors i got plenty spare, so all good there.
I am low on power mosfets, but that is expected.
Got plenty of power bjt's.
Transformers i do not stock, but i do not see shortage.
So no real issue here.
Stay safe.