Recently I had a flat panel monitor that I bought a few years back from Wal-Mart burn out on me. Now, I realize that Wal-Mart generally sells "disposable" technology, designed to last a few years, burn out and then you buy another one...hence the real cheap prices and all. But I decided to look into this one and see about repairing it, mostly for fun, more than anything.
So I popped open the little puzzle box of parts and after taking out what must have been about two or three dozen screws (honestly I lost count) I uncovered the power control board! Oooh, aaah, covered in a vast array of capacitors I decided that this would be the best place to look for problems first...and I would be right. I found, not one, but three, *THREE* popped capacitors!
Now for those not familiar with what a popped cap looks like, well, the one on the left is a good cap, the one on the right...yeah not so good.
Basically a popped cap looks sort of like a soda can that was put into the freezer too long, sorta bulging a bit, with often a reddish, brownish nastiness leaking from the top. Some popped caps are more spectacular than others. Keep in mind though that a cap doesn't have to appear popped at all for it to be fubar, at which point you need to break on out yer multi-meter and start checking everything manually...tedium! Yeah, but most times it'll be fairly obvious what the problem is.
Sooo...I needed new caps! At first I decided to try Radio Shack! LOL, yeah, I know, RS has become a bit of a joke in recent decades as far as hobbyist electronics go. Most of the flunkies working in their stores probably don't even know what a capacitor is, much less the difference between radial and axial caps, voltage, microfarads and so forth.
Anyway, on Radio Shack's website I ran a search for "220uf 25v"...and I got nothin. Big surprise. So I then tried to dumb my search down to the Radio Shack flunkie level and searched for just "capacitor" and that brought up some hits...none of which were actually relevant to what I was looking for, but hey, good try Radio Shack, good try!
^__^
Okay, enough with the amateurs, now it's time to look at the *REAL* electronics distributors and see what they got to offer. I'm going to be looking at six companies here, including Digi-Key, Futurlec, Mouser, Jameco, MCM and Allied. Most of which are fairly big names as far as electronic component dealers. I'll now go through each one and describe my experiences on their websites, their prices, their shipping, etc and finally I'll round it all up with the company I finally went with and who I think the best overall is. Okay, here we go!
Futurlec
This is the first company I looked at. I was able to find them via a Google search of "220uf 25v capacitor". They were the first hit (sans the sponsored link by Digi-Key).
Their component search lacked any product pictures, but they did have a "more info" icon you could click on that would bring you to another page that had a picture of the product. Somewhat cumbersome, but at least product images were available.
The caps I selected were just .10 cents each and they let you order in singles. Their "standard" shipping, via USPS is just $4, for orders up to $29, which brought my total up to $4.30, the second cheapest out of all the companies I looked at.
The downside to this company...well, I placed my initial order on 12/29 at approximately 6pm, that was a Tuesday. Not including New Years Eve, New Years or the following Sunday, they could have shipped it out on Thursday, the 30, Saturday the 2nd, or heck, how about today on Monday the 4th? Well, as I write this, it's already just about 5pm pacific time and their order tracking page still has no information at all regarding shipping.
So sans any mistakes I'm ASSuming that they still haven't bothered shipping it out yet. Of course, while they don't seem very speedy as far as shipping, boy they certainly wasted no time at all charging my debit card, that was done right the next day on the 30th.
Mouser Electronics
This company had a pretty extensive array of products ...almost too extensive. Out of all the companies I looked at, each of them either had too few or too many products to choose from, not a single one had a nice, medium range of products...you know like say twenty...twenty is plenty. My search at Mouser for "220uf 25v" brought up over 150...yeah...a lil overkill there.
Their prices were good, only .12 cents a cap for the ones I was interested in and they let you buy them in singles which was nice. They also had product images within the search results for most of their products, which was also a plus.
The cheapest shipping they offered, via USPS was $6.95 and that would have brought the total up to $7.31 for my three caps (not including any potential tax charges). Overall not that bad. Not the best price by far, but certainly not the most expensive either.
Jameco Electronics
These guys didn't have a huge selection, only 5 results from my search of "220uf 25v", however they did have product images and once a product was selected they had a nice, simple, well designed display of the product specifications.
The downside to this company is that with all the products I found, you had to order in multiples of 10. Their price per cap wasn't too bad, the one I was interested in was only .15 cents each, so overall it would have just cost $1.50, similar for what the price was for buying just 3 or 4 at other outfits.
I did think it was a bit wasteful though, since I really didn't need any extras and they likely would have just been thrown out in the long run...and keep in mind these things are made out of lead, not exactly real environmentally friendly.
The point that broke the deal on this company though was the shipping charge. Their cheapest shipping method was $8.45 for the 1st 2lbs, via UPS ground (residential).
That would have brought the total up to $9.95 for 10 caps...not including any potential tax charges.
Allied Electronics
I'm afraid I didn't get far with these guys. I ran a search for the caps I was looking for and got 64 results for "220uf 25v"...but I couldn't order from them.
Why not? Well, first of all, only *ONE* of those 64 products even had a product image, so I really had no idea at all what I would even be getting. This was compounded by the fact that the majority of their search results had no real descriptions, only a couple were listed as being axial or radial or surface mount, etc, etc.
Upon later inspection of the site I did find that there was a string of seemingly random letters tagged onto the product names and I was eventually able to decipher some meaning out of them to figure out (I think) whether or not they were at least axial or radial in design.
Of course by that time I had already moved on and ordered from someone else. And no, no they didn't even include any sort of a legend or key as to what all those seemingly random letters were for...hell I don't even know if I was able to decipher them correctly or not...I mean what with no product images and all.
MCM Electronics
By far the most expensive, these guys literally rape their customers wallets on several points. First of all, for the 3 caps I selected, they were $1.82 ...EACH! Of course they only had *TWO* kinds, THE WORST selection out of all the companies I looked at. And the other kind they carried, the cheapest, they were still $1.03 ...EACH!
But oh, the wallet raping with MCM Electronics goes deeper than that. Once you select your products and go to the order page you'll find that the minimum shipping price is, get this...$8.99! And that's the *SAME* "lowest" price as shipping USPS, FedEx or UPS. Now, last I checked, USPS, FedEx and UPS all didn't charge the exact same flat rate for shipping, but I guess apparently no one has told the guys over at MCM Electronics that.
In total, if I had ordered with this company, I would have wound up spending $14.45 (not including possible tax) for just THREE measly little capacitors. Yeah...don't do business with these guys, they're just looking to rape you.
Digi-Key
By far they were the cheapest, I was able to buy my three caps for .33 cents each, with .08 cents sales tax and $2.41 for shipping via USPS first class mail. My total was just $3.48 in all.
The ~problem~ with Digi-Key though is that you don't ~actually~ know how much your order is going to be...even when you submit it. It lists the shipping as "unknown" and you have to look through their shipping page and try and calculate the weight of what you ordered in order to try and figure out how much they're going to charge you for the various shipping methods they offer.
Their product search page was also overly confusing, poorly designed, cumbersome and suffered from "information overload" so to speak. They also carry *SO* many products that it's just a confusing mess to potential customers. I think they would do far better if they cut their selection down to a more reasonable size so as not to overwhelm customers with search results in a giant, unending grid of potential products.
To make the mess even worse, their search brings up identical products with different quantity options. Quantity options should come AFTER you've selected the product you want, not molesting your screen and brain with unending reams of useless information.
Overall Comparison
Digi-Key - $ 3.48
Futurlec - $ 4.30
Mouser - $ 7.31
Jameco - $ 9.95
MCM - $14.45
Allied - $ ?.??
Order from Digi-Key. They're the cheapest, and although their website search is a horrible fucking disaster, you know you'll be getting the best deal once you manage to find what you're looking for in their horrible mess of a website.
Alternatively I would also suggest Futurlec, they were also very cheap, although their shipping seems to be a bit on the slow side...er, I'm sorry, their getting around *TO* shipping seems to be a bit on the slow side...don't wanna place any blame here on USPS after all, it's not their fault if a company sits on their ass for days at a time before sending out ordered products.
Since I just placed my order with Digi-Key I don't know how fast their overall shipping is, but I'll post an update once I do. I'll also post an update when Futurlec finally gets around to actually shipping off my order as well. ^__^
...er, no, wait...I just got an e-mail from Digi-Key, not only did they send me a new total, it's now only $3.13, thirty five cents LESS than what it originally said on their site, but they also just shipped it...I mean like right now they just shipped it. o_O
Well...I guess everybody knows who to order from now. All those other companies...yeah you can just go out of business, Digi-Key is running circles around you and laughing all the while.
UPDATE!
I just got an e-mail from Futurlec and they have confirmed that my order *HAS* actually been shipped, so it seems they're right in line with Digi-Key on the order processing. Digi-Key is slightly cheaper, although Futurlec has a more reasonable selection of parts and a better interface, so I would go with either of them.
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