Farnell/Element14 losing even more plot

[Dave]

As far as search goes, Digikey is my favorite. I hate Farnell's incapability to properly sort the values.
I'll allow the image below to speak for itself.
What is the point of having the ability to pick a minimum and maximum value, if you don't actually get that?

[pipe]

You know what the real irony is? In some countries they refuse to sell to hobbyists at all.

I feel with you here. In Sweden they refuse to sell to individual customers. They will only let you create an account if you have a registered business. That's just bullshit, when they have a completely automated order system.

[mamalala]

At least with E14, you can guess what category you need to drill down into for most items.  The RS version has me thinking "WTF?" way too often.

Plus, not all parts are properly categorized either. Like, you go into some main category, and if you add up the numbers of a category it ends up less than what  the main category shows. Sometimes a characteristic appears in the text on the products page, but not in the column of the overview page of the category.

Greetings,

Chris

[mamalala]

Oh, and for RS, you better double-check everything that is sent from their UK warehouses. I often had parts missing, or wrong parts (but correctly bagged), correctly labeled bags with wrong parts inside, or completely empty bags in cases where you order 10 IC and you get 10 antistatic bags, one for each chip.

See images, one shows a "good" bag on the left (opened, since i used a few parts of that already), and a "bad" bag (unopened) on the right, which came with the second order i made. The other image shows an "empty" bag, unopened. While the tape snippet for the part is there, there is no actual part in it.

Strangely, so far that only happened with stuff that came from UK warehouses. Luckily they always re-sent the proper or missing stuff once i informed them about it and attached the images.

Greetings,

Chris

[GK]

What I loathe about the search engines for both distributors is that they do not categorize/list their component by series. Say for instance I want to buy some values of 1% 500mW resistors. Why can't I just be able to click: fixed resistors>metal film>through hole>1%>500mW>manufacturer>series> and then get a list of all values in the selected series, and that series ONLY, instead of having to parametrically select the desired resistor values in ohms and then having to sort through fifty thousand individual matches from about 5 thousand different resistor series? Same goes for capacitors.


 

[zapta]

But I am Homeschooling now because of bullys.
(the principle didn't  really care about bulling.)

The bullies are losers and hopefully the homeschooling gives you more time to learn and build electronic stuff.  ;-)

[grumpydoc]

Why can't I just be able to click: fixed resistors>metal film>through hole>1%>500mW>manufacturer>series> and then get a list of all values in the selected series, and that series ONLY, instead of having to parametrically select the desired resistor values in ohms

For resistors you can, sort-of, on the Farnell search, at least on the UK site.

Select Passive Components->Resistors - Fixed Value->Through Hole Resistors

Then select 1% in tolerance and 500mW in power and click apply

Then go to Product Range - you can now see which manufacturer/series actually has 1% 500mW values. Those which don't are greyed out.

Select the series that you want and click apply again

Now in the Resistance column you can see which values are in the series - again the ones which aren't are greyed out.

Not exactly what you were after, I suspect, but close.

Can't quite do it with caps though.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Why can't I just be able to click: fixed resistors>metal film>through hole>1%>500mW>manufacturer>series> and then get a list of all values in the selected series, and that series ONLY, instead of having to parametrically select the desired resistor values in ohms

For resistors you can, sort-of, on the Farnell search, at least on the UK site.

Select Passive Components->Resistors - Fixed Value->Through Hole Resistors

Then select 1% in tolerance and 500mW in power and click apply

Then go to Product Range - you can now see which manufacturer/series actually has 1% 500mW values. Those which don't are greyed out.

Select the series that you want and click apply again

Now in the Resistance column you can see which values are in the series - again the ones which aren't are greyed out.

Not exactly what you were after, I suspect, but close.

Can't quite do it with caps though.

Still a pain to order a lot of different values - sometimes you can do it by 'injecting' the value into the manufacturer partno field once you've found one value, but still way harder than it should be to order jellybean parts

[grumpydoc]

Still a pain to order a lot of different values - sometimes you can do it by 'injecting' the value into the manufacturer partno field once you've found one value, but still way harder than it should be to order jellybean parts

Yeah, thankfully I don't need to order lots of stuff as I'm generally doing one-off repairs or simple projects.

Resistors is perhaps a bad example as it almost comes close to being useful - some of the other searches aren't great though. For one thing you're relying on what parameters Farnell thought would be useful in the search which is not always what you actually want to search on and sometimes there's too much division into sub-categories before you get to the parameterised search.

Mouser's is a bit better but starts to suffer with the sheer variety of stuff they stock.

[Bored@Work]

You know what the real irony is? In some countries they refuse to sell to hobbyists at all.

I feel with you here. In Sweden they refuse to sell to individual customers. They will only let you create an account if you have a registered business. That's just bullshit, when they have a completely automated order system.

Yes, it looks as it is up to the local country manager to decide if they want individual customers or not. And apparently they hire a lot of dickheads as local mangers and don't properly supervise them.

But I do get my revenge. I make it a point to discourage my employer from buying from Farnell whenever I can. I mean, if they don't want to deal with me as a hobbyist, I don't want to deal with them as an engineer.

[zapta]

But I do get my revenge. I make it a point to discourage my employer from buying from Farnell whenever I can. I mean, if they don't want to deal with me as a hobbyist, I don't want to deal with them as an engineer.

That's a conflict of interest. You should disclose it to your employer ;-)

[Rigby]

But I am Homeschooling now because of bullys.
(the principle didn't  really care about bulling.)

This is one of the great injustices that goes on.  Parents send their children to school for education.  The school is fully responsible for the well-being of those children during school hours and during school activities.  Legally anything that happens to you, even bullying, is something that the school can be sued for, especially if it results in physical violence towards you.

There are a few things to remember when it comes to bullying:
1) the principal has NO IDEA AT ALL about how to deal with it.  This is very, very common, and it's seen by a lot of adults as something that just isn't a problem, which is 100% incorrect.

2) the person(s) bullying you live in abusive homes.  They are the victims of abuse.  This is both reason for and punishment for their bullying, to me.  I very much enjoyed the thought of those people going home and being beaten by their fathers.  It was wrong of me to enjoy this, but it helped me deal.

3) no one can make you feel like shit if you don't already feel like shit for some reason.  bullies only pick on easy targets.  figure out what's going on to make you appear to be a victim, and rectify it.

4) bullying stops the instant you make it stop.  In my case I punched the fella right in the mouth, while pretending to be scared.  me being scared fanned his fire, and i took the opportunity to lay his ass to the ground with a surprise left-hook.  one person after that guy picked on me, 2 years later, and I did the same thing.  after that no one ever picked on me again.  I was in Jr. High in the first case, freshman in HS the second.

No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your consent.  So, while you're away from those turds, work on your self-confidence.  That you're on this forum is a very good indicator of intelligence, and despite a few people on here having foul moods from time to time, myself included, we're all relatively intelligent.  So you're already way ahead of the average, right there.

Home schooling is good.  If the parent teaching you is invested in your education, you're going to get a better education than anyone in any public school that isn't also getting a lot of tutoring and is in advanced classes.  So you have an educational advantage there.

So, you have a great opportunity to advance yourself mentally while you're hanging out at home learning stuff no one else knows.  I actually envy your situation a bit.  If you return to public school at the same place or with the same kids, just know going in that you're going to throw a punch on the first day.  Accept it, and do your best to knock the kid who decides you're a target onto his back with a single punch.  No one will mess with you, and maybe even a few girls will pay more attention to you.

[Bored@Work]

But I do get my revenge. I make it a point to discourage my employer from buying from Farnell whenever I can. I mean, if they don't want to deal with me as a hobbyist, I don't want to deal with them as an engineer.

That's a conflict of interest. You should disclose it to your employer ;-)

They know it. And I am not the only engineer by day / hobbyist by night in the company who is not exactly happy about Farnell's behavior.

[electronics man]

I'm different I love Farnell, I love there website, so much easier to use than digikey and mouser. I find the digikey website looks cheep and unfinished. Even RS is hard to use, they don't have a good parametric search like farnell does. Farnell has great, very fast shipping (next day without fail) I love them. thumbs up for farnell

[mikeselectricstuff]

I'm different I love Farnell, I love there website, so much easier to use than digikey and mouser.

You're kidding, right? Farrnell don't even understand how to sort numerics.

I find the digikey website looks cheep and unfinished.

It may look less flashy but it works a whole lot better.

Farnell has great, very fast shipping (next day without fail) I love them. thumbs up for farnell

Farnell do generally offer a great service, it just pisses me off to see them spunking money on useless crap when they could be making genuine time-saving improvements to the usability of their website, to save me, their customer, time, and stop me getting so pissed off that I go to Digikey. 

Even RS is hard to use, they don't have a good parametric search like farnell does.

Well they do, but the data is even more piss-poor than Farnell's, so it's borderline unusable

[lpc32]

Speaking of missing features, I didn't find a way to filter based on minimum order quantity in Digikey or Mouser. Am I missing something?

[mikeselectricstuff]

Speaking of missing features, I didn't find a way to filter based on minimum order quantity in Digikey or Mouser. Am I missing something?

Yes - at Digikey you can enter a quantity (at top if search results) , which is used for sort by price, and to filter out items with insufficient stock, but ISTR it only appears when logged on.

[lpc32]

Thanks. Works without being logged in. Multi-key sorting would still be helpful, but that works too. Nothing of the sort at Mouser? (Though they do seem to have 1 as minimum quantity on most things, if I'm not mistaken).

[envisionelec]

But I am Homeschooling now because of bullys.
(the principle didn't  really care about bulling.)

So, you have a great opportunity to advance yourself mentally while you're hanging out at home learning stuff no one else knows.  I actually envy your situation a bit.  If you return to public school at the same place or with the same kids, just know going in that you're going to throw a punch on the first day.  Accept it, and do your best to knock the kid who decides you're a target onto his back with a single punch.  No one will mess with you, and maybe even a few girls will pay more attention to you.

Whenever I want, I can watch this scene and watch my bully get his ass handed to him, running away like a sissy.

[TVman]

But I am Homeschooling now because of bullys.
(the principle didn't  really care about bulling.)

The bullies are losers and hopefully the homeschooling gives you more time to learn and build electronic stuff.  ;-)

Oh yes, Homeschooling gives me A LOT more time to play with electronics!

[TVman]

But I am Homeschooling now because of bullys.
(the principle didn't  really care about bulling.)

This is one of the great injustices that goes on.  Parents send their children to school for education.  The school is fully responsible for the well-being of those children during school hours and during school activities.  Legally anything that happens to you, even bullying, is something that the school can be sued for, especially if it results in physical violence towards you.

There are a few things to remember when it comes to bullying:
1) the principal has NO IDEA AT ALL about how to deal with it.  This is very, very common, and it's seen by a lot of adults as something that just isn't a problem, which is 100% incorrect.

2) the person(s) bullying you live in abusive homes.  They are the victims of abuse.  This is both reason for and punishment for their bullying, to me.  I very much enjoyed the thought of those people going home and being beaten by their fathers.  It was wrong of me to enjoy this, but it helped me deal.

3) no one can make you feel like shit if you don't already feel like shit for some reason.  bullies only pick on easy targets.  figure out what's going on to make you appear to be a victim, and rectify it.

4) bullying stops the instant you make it stop.  In my case I punched the fella right in the mouth, while pretending to be scared.  me being scared fanned his fire, and i took the opportunity to lay his ass to the ground with a surprise left-hook.  one person after that guy picked on me, 2 years later, and I did the same thing.  after that no one ever picked on me again.  I was in Jr. High in the first case, freshman in HS the second.

No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your consent.  So, while you're away from those turds, work on your self-confidence.  That you're on this forum is a very good indicator of intelligence, and despite a few people on here having foul moods from time to time, myself included, we're all relatively intelligent.  So you're already way ahead of the average, right there.

Home schooling is good.  If the parent teaching you is invested in your education, you're going to get a better education than anyone in any public school that isn't also getting a lot of tutoring and is in advanced classes.  So you have an educational advantage there.

So, you have a great opportunity to advance yourself mentally while you're hanging out at home learning stuff no one else knows.  I actually envy your situation a bit.  If you return to public school at the same place or with the same kids, just know going in that you're going to throw a punch on the first day.  Accept it, and do your best to knock the kid who decides you're a target onto his back with a single punch.

Thank you RigBy, Some very wise words have just been said!

Maybe even a few girls will pay more attention to you.

Blahh!

[electronics man]

One really annoying feature of digikey is that when you sort by price (lowest to higest) it gives you a whole load of products that that are no longer manufactured so they don't have a price

[kizzap]

This is one of the great injustices that goes on.  Parents send their children to school for education.  The school is fully responsible for the well-being of those children during school hours and during school activities.  Legally anything that happens to you, even bullying, is something that the school can be sued for, especially if it results in physical violence towards you.

There are a few things to remember when it comes to bullying:
1) the principal has NO IDEA AT ALL about how to deal with it.  This is very, very common, and it's seen by a lot of adults as something that just isn't a problem, which is 100% incorrect.

Yes and No. The problem is that the "strategies" that get put in place never work. Kids see that weakness and go in harder in other ways because they know they are getting in your head.

2) the person(s) bullying you live in abusive homes.  They are the victims of abuse.  This is both reason for and punishment for their bullying, to me.  I very much enjoyed the thought of those people going home and being beaten by their fathers.  It was wrong of me to enjoy this, but it helped me deal.

I'm going to straight up call bullshit on this. Are you telling me that a complete grade of 180 students that I was bullied by were all from abusive homes? Kids bully because it is fun for them.

3) no one can make you feel like shit if you don't already feel like shit for some reason.  bullies only pick on easy targets.  figure out what's going on to make you appear to be a victim, and rectify it.

I agree with this.

4) bullying stops the instant you make it stop.  In my case I punched the fella right in the mouth, while pretending to be scared.  me being scared fanned his fire, and i took the opportunity to lay his ass to the ground with a surprise left-hook.  one person after that guy picked on me, 2 years later, and I did the same thing.  after that no one ever picked on me again.  I was in Jr. High in the first case, freshman in HS the second.

No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your consent.  So, while you're away from those turds, work on your self-confidence.  That you're on this forum is a very good indicator of intelligence, and despite a few people on here having foul moods from time to time, myself included, we're all relatively intelligent.  So you're already way ahead of the average, right there.

Be careful with this. I would even strongly suggest ignoring this advice. If you end up against a group and throw a punch they are going to beat the living shit out of you. Sometimes flying under the radar is the better option.

So, you have a great opportunity to advance yourself mentally while you're hanging out at home learning stuff no one else knows.  I actually envy your situation a bit.  If you return to public school at the same place or with the same kids, just know going in that you're going to throw a punch on the first day.  Accept it, and do your best to knock the kid who decides you're a target onto his back with a single punch.  No one will mess with you, and maybe even a few girls will pay more attention to you.

Again, I suggest against such actions. It will bring a series of negative repercussions that you don't want or need.

</De-railment>

[Kjelt]

Be careful with this. I would even strongly suggest ignoring this advice. If you end up against a group and throw a punch they are going to beat the living shit out of you.

If that happens go to your parents let them call the police, sue each and every person that hit you and sue the school if it happened on their watch and property.
Mostly physical bullying happens outside the school property which makes them powerless to do anything.
With me it ended the day one of the bullies kicked me between my legs (you know what I mean) in school and I went home, my parents at that moment called the school and the police and immediate action was taken by the school who only then saw how serious it was. The bully (one of the many) was expelled for a month, their parents had to talk to the police and I was never ever bullied again, yeah verbally abuse but not physical.

At this moment there is a new tv show here in Holland that lets the victim carry a hidden camera for weeks in school recording all the bullying and then confront the school, mentors and class as a whole to discuss it. Most bullies have no idea what damage they cause by their victim and usually if it was only one bully it can be handled but mostly a lot of the classmates are copying the behaviour making life a living hell for the victim. Stop it, and stop it now.

[Rigby]

4) bullying stops the instant you make it stop.  In my case I punched the fella right in the mouth, while pretending to be scared.  me being scared fanned his fire, and i took the opportunity to lay his ass to the ground with a surprise left-hook.  one person after that guy picked on me, 2 years later, and I did the same thing.  after that no one ever picked on me again.  I was in Jr. High in the first case, freshman in HS the second.

No one can make you feel bad about yourself without your consent.  So, while you're away from those turds, work on your self-confidence.  That you're on this forum is a very good indicator of intelligence, and despite a few people on here having foul moods from time to time, myself included, we're all relatively intelligent.  So you're already way ahead of the average, right there.

Be careful with this. I would even strongly suggest ignoring this advice. If you end up against a group and throw a punch they are going to beat the living shit out of you. Sometimes flying under the radar is the better option.

Bullies Abusers rely on the victim remaining silent.  Do NOT remain silent, and DO stand up to them.  It is unlikely that anyone else will stand up for you, so you MUST do it yourself.

It is far easier to heal from a physical beating than it is to recover when a piece of your soul is taken away by bullying.

And, yes.  The chronic bullies do come from abusive homes, and, yes, abuse is FAR more prevalent than you think.