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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

I've used them for tons of projects. I've read people that throw shade their way for their prices for components compared to some of the offshore websites like digikey or alibaba. However, I don't like their websites, and anything they might be "overcharging" for is easily made up with what I receive from the rest of their website. I'm constantly in a state of 2-3 projects that are in various stages of incomplete. If the parts&pieces for these projects didn't come from SparkFun, they probably came from Adafruit. Love both of these sites.

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>offshore websites like digikey

Digi-key has been based in Minnesota since they were founded 40+ years ago. Sure a lot of their parts are manufactured in other countries (just like Sparkfun), but their main distribution center is in the US, and they have thousands of employees working there.

watch me eat this big bowl of crow. honestly, had no idea, and made a huge assumption. will actually have to rethink order from there. still don't like their website though ;-)

Digi-Key has what has to be a top contender for fastest order processing & shipment of any company that does e-commerce ever. No exaggeration, it's almost inconceivable how quickly they will pack up and ship out your order. Especially when considering most orders likely contain many different, intricately small parts each of varying quantities. For example, I've seen YouTube videos from AvE who lives in Canada, where he ordered a few ICs late-ish the previous night and UPS dropped them off at his door the next afternoon. And this isn't a one-off occasion, it's consistent.

McMaster-Carr might be comparable, though. At Georgia Tech, a MC order at like 9AM could realistically be received at like 1PM with the cheapest shipping option. Usually the slow link was GT Post Office.

But that's because MC has a warehouse really close to Atlanta.

What? They have the best website of all the electronics distributors.

Which distributor has a better website?

I personally prefer mouser over digikey.

It's not electronics, but for many years now McMaster-Carr [1] has impressed me as a highly practical and efficient website.

[1] McMaster.com

Funnily enough, when I first stumbled on them (about 15 years ago) I too assumed they were a China-based company for some reason. It wasn't until the first shipment arrived and I finally noticed the sender address that I realised they were States-based. I still use them for most of my parts, they're amazingly quick to process and ship, and the free shipping for $50+ orders is awesome.

Their only distribution center, at that! They ship everything out of the Thief River Falls warehouse. They also run a great tour, if you're ever in the area.

Fun fact, they can take just about any combination of the 1million+ SKUs they stock from order reception to in a box waiting for a truck in under 15 minutes.

another fun fact, they will ship for free if you pay by check.

> They also run a great tour, if you're ever in the area.

Hearing this made me very curious, then sad, as I'm 8953mi ( 14408km) away.

But then I found https://spectrum.ieee.org/slideshow/semiconductors/devices/s.... The tiny little blue arrows on the slideshow weren't immediately obvious!

They have (had?) a local warehouse I think off 101 in the Bay Area, don't remember exactly where. You could walk in with a list of parts and they would grab them for you right there.

You're thinking of Jameco?

Yep thanks I just remembered that's what it was ("it had a J in it"). Woops. Not sure why I've had them confused for Digi-Key the last few years. Maybe the Digi-Key branding is just more memorable.

Digikey is great -- so is Sparkfun! I use them both extensively.

BTW: you can order a lot of Sparkfun (and Adafruit) stuff from DigiKey. I do this a lot since Digi-Key ships faster and I already live in MN so it gets here next day.

I live in MN now, but when I lived on the East Coast, I remember talking to a Digi-Key order taker on the phone (pre-web days!) about the weather. It was winter and all the roads were closed, but many of the employees came to work on snowmobiles.

I have to add that in the (holy cow!) 30 years that I've been buying parts from Digi-Key either for personal use, my own businesses, or employers, I remember them making exactly three mistakes! Two of which I didn't care about, the third, since the order was for the company I worked for, they corrected immediately.

I can happily live with 3 errors in 30 years!

I've come to the conclusion that better documented, quality controlled parts are worth it as my free time for hardware projects dwindles. In the end the parts for RPi and Arduino projects are generally quite cheap in comparison to my time.

Not sure where your shore is, but Digikey is in the US.

to be fair Digikey is in more than the US, they ship to me from China - probably a good thing given the current US trade war on itself

I don't really think that's being fair. The association the parent made was between Digikey and Alibaba. Digikey has pretty much exactly the same startup story as Sparkfun. Read all about it (https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/about-digikey):

It was Dr. Ronald A. Stordahl's interest in ham radio that provided the springboard for what has become Digi-Key today.

While in college he assembled and began selling a digital electronic keyer kit for sending radiotelegraph code for ham radio operators. It was called the Digi-Key.

After obtaining his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Stordahl returned to his hometown of Thief River Falls, Minnesota. The keyer kit was discontinued and he began selling electronic components in 1972. The Digi-Key "keyer" is long gone, but Digi-Key has become one of the fastest growing electronic component distributors in the world. We continue to operate on the premise of providing our customers – you – with superior service, focusing on the key areas of product selection, product availability, on-time delivery, and responsiveness.

I like how much energy Sparkfun spends on education and resources. This helps me justify their prices for some purchases.

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