Supplier delivery speed

[Demon]

Gotta give Mouser credit:

MANSFIELD, TX US
Label Created
6/5/2023 9:47 PM

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Delivered
6/6/2023 at 3:31 PM

That's under 1 day, and I didn't pick any turbo mail either, just their regular whatever.

Thing is, package spent all afternoon in the rain cause I wasn't expecting it. I just checked online tonight to see if DigiKey was gonna be faster than Mouser, and there's a pic of my house on the Mouser tracking.

DigiKey and Mouser are my goto places for parts I need yesterday, or that I can't get on-the-cheap online.

Robert

[Demon]

Speaking of on-the-cheap; I was about to put in an order for 7-segment LEDs on AliExpress. But one of the colours was off, a sickly yellow-green instead of yellow, and I needed one format they didn't have online, so I sent a message to the supplier.

Dude comes back, says he's got the real yellows, but can't update the site cause there's an active sale (I guess it's an AliExpress policy that's stopping him). The best part, he says to hold on till the 12th, there's a 17% sale coming on those parts, and he'll have those good yellows listed. They also add shipping per part as your build your order, it gets crazy fast; like $120 shipping on a $400 order. So yeah, he says he can combine shipping.

I saw his name mentioned in the comments; we'll see if he's as good as he looks at first glance. Price of some parts has come down a lot; like LCD displays. But the Arduino generation is making the price of other stuff like the 7-segment LEDs explode. We used to be able to get them for a few pennies, now I'm lucky if I can get them for $0.16 (I think they start at $1.50-ish on Digikey).

I also noticed Digikey and Mouser are having a hard time having some stuff in stock. I'm often hit with the ZERO STOCK notice when I'm doing searches for parts. I cleaned out the last 16 MCP23016 that Mouser had on hand. I know we're supposed to switch to the MCP23017 (slightly cheaper), but I'm used to the MCP23016, and the PICs I'm using only go up to 400kHz at best, and even that comes with a disclaimer on the datasheet.

The I2C interface does not conform to the 400 kHz I2C specification (which applies to rates greater than
100 kHz) in all details, but may be used with care where higher rates are required by the application.

While the MCP23017 can run at 1.7MHz. The nice thing with the MCP23017, you don't need the capacitor/resistor combo to get the clock going. Oh crap, I wanted to order a few to start playing with them. Oh well...

Robert

[Ioannis]

Well, I consider myself very lucky that Mouser ships to France, passes all the Customs Office details for all European orders and then delivers to each of the final customer, tax-free.

This will take usually a week or so.

Unfortunately Digi Key does not, so I have to pay too much import taxes for about the half the delivery time.

But, less than a day? WOW!

Ioannis

[Demon]

This is what I mean when I talk about the "Arduino craze"; these LCDs went for $5 or so 15 years ago.

$75 USD, saw another ad in Canada at $170CAD, for these exact LDs that I got dirt cheap over a decade ago.

(I was looking for a datasheet to be sure on how to connect mine to my project and saw these listing)

Insanity...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284694748307


EDIT: $190 USD, USED!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304015492339



EDIT some more: Then after a few more clicks, averaging $5-8 USD, NEW!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155162017250

[Ioannis]

Makes no sense at all... Why one put that price on a used LCD? Maybe it is a special one?

I think yes. It has the connector on the right side while the standard is on the left side. For this you have to pay that price?

EDIT 1: found this on aliexpress https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004250607751.html so still does not make sense...

Ioannis

[Demon]

I wasn't exaggerating when I said I bought these by the bag for peanuts.





My chicken-scratches I wrote on the label says 23 LCDs.

And I must have at least another 5 LCDs spread out on projects lying about the basement. I think I had bought 3 bags; says $30 for 10 on the bag, so only $3 per LCD.

Ah man, just googled Advanced Computer Products; they were shut down by Apple.

https://www.snarc.net/tr/freeman-acp.htm

[Demon]

JLCPCB:

- ordered January 9th, ordinary shipping
- received January 19th

Note that these are tiny, only 25mm x 25mm (1in x 1in).









Real happy button fit is perfect. I had tweaked the pins holes a tad, and added 2 alignment holes that were missing. Was afraid I had messed things up in the footprint.

[Ioannis]

Looks great!

Keep updating.

Ioannis

[Demon]

Were your packages from JLCPCB wrapped like they could have just been thrown out of the airplane door as it passed over your house?



Holy crap, these few tiny circuits were wrapped in bubble-wrap and completely filled this box.

[Ioannis]

Yes, everytime i receive them that way. Too much wrap for a small quantity!

Ioannis

[Demon]

Note: JLCPCB wraps PCBs so they can withstand an airdrop with no parachute when they have components mounted.

Latest JLCPCB order to Canada:
- 14 PCBs, no components mounted
- ZIP files were created on March 29th and 31st
- package received 2 days ago, April 8th.

So it seems as though they ship international orders in batches. I was lucky that my 2 orders left at the same time (ordinary shipping).

Still, not bad for regular shipping, with 2 day production delay.

[Ioannis]

Isn't it amazing how things are today regarding PCB manufacturing?

Once I had either to do it myself for one layer, using chemicals or pay too much money for barely acceptable quality of small production.

Now we can have as many as 16 layers, SMD assembly and all that in a blink of an eye...!

Ioannis

[Demon]

I'm not going to break any records with this shipment.


It is cool that we can now track container ships in real time.

[Demon]

JLCPCB: created my ZIP on April 10th, received today on April 16th via DHL courrier.

[Ioannis]

Have yet to beat that speed!

Ioannis