New(ish) Digi-Reel Policy... Be Careful!!!!!........

[Smokey]

PSA Punch Line:  Digikey will split up digi-reel items into multiple reels unless you explicitly tell them not to!

(Yes, I know, I should not need to be buying digi-reels.  It was sort of an emergency.)

I placed an order with a bunch of digi-reels.  Just in case anyone does not know what that is, it's essentially a cut tape quantity that digikey then puts back on a reel for a $7 per line item charge so it can be used by a pick and place machine feeder.  None of the quantities were more than a single reel would handle (because I obviously would have just bought a full reel then).

What I received was this.. 7 of the line items, instead of coming on one reel, came on multiple reels.  One of the line items came on three (3!) separate reels.  This is the best one.   One of the reels had two (2!) components on it.

These are not $5000 FPGAs.  They are $1 ICs.

I called Digikey customer service and they told me this...
...It was supposed to happen like that!?!?.. Since they started shipping from their "new warehouse" about a year ago, the policy is to ship digi-reels with whatever quantities they have on hand unless you specifically tell them the digi-reels need to be one continuous reel.
The kicker.. you need to have them put the "one continuous reel" requirement "on your file".  So you have to call them up and have them make that note manually.  There is no option at order time. 

This is so colossally stupid for so many reasons.
1) What the hell am I supposed to do with a reel with two parts on it?  My CM is going to be pissed if they need to swap reels 3 times.
 That totally defeats the purpose of digi-reels.
2) What the hell is the $7 service fee for if they will, by policy, voluntarily re-reel multiple cut tapes per item just for the hell of it at no extra charge?
3) They obviously know this is a problem since they have a way to tell them not to do it, but they make you jump through a bunch of hoops to select that option.

I asked that they accept return of these items at no charge and next day ship me continuous reels replacements, again at no charge.  They didn't push back at all so that makes me think I'm not the first person to think this is unacceptable.

WTF Digikey?

[thm_w]

Odd, and doesn't match what they say on their website: https://www.digikey.com/en/videos/d/digi-key-electronics/what-is-a-digi-reel

A Digi-Reel® is a custom set of uninterrupted belt section on reel made by a manufacturer's roller. At the beginning and at the end, 18-inch pieces of bench are mounted so that the pinion holes are aligned, allowing for direct and flawless feeding into automated board-mounting equipment. Thereafter, the entire tape is rewound onto a plastic reel in accordance with the industry standards of the Electronics Industries Alliance (EIA). There is no minimum order quantity, so whether you need a single component or a thousand components; we can provide the appropriate digi-reel.

[Smokey]

.. yes, the entire tape was rewound onto a plastic reel. 
.. But unfortunately if the first thing they grab is a cut tape that is shorter than you ordered then they re-reel that one, and then grab another and re-reel that one on another reel... and if that one plus the first one is shorter than you ordered then they grab another and re-reel that one on another reel.

[law]

Hey,
I've ran into this and it is pretty annoying.
I just contacted Digikey via the online chat to see if they would add a note to my account about the "one continuous reel" requirement.
They would not:
> With our new system we can only put one strip on per reel so digireels do come in different size reels as these parts are cut tape so it is just taken from the bin in whatever quantities we have. You would need to either order cut tape in a continuous strip but it would not come on a reel or order the full tape and reel.
...
> Sorry we only have continuous strip for cut tape not continuous reel on a digireel

They went on to explain:
> We use to put up to 3 strips on a reel and we got alot of negative feed back so it is not easy to please everyone but we just did this so people would not get more than 1 date code on each reel
>  They do try to only make 1 digireel to save time on making digi reels but it is not always possible so we can ship our orders to get them out daily
So it looks like this is an alternative to a previous system that they had bad times with.

For me it looks like it's a get what I am given sort of affair. Probably because I'm not spending enough cash money there....

[Smokey]

saga continues...

They not only split my line item into multiple reels, they shipped those reels in multiple shipments.... So I had to wait to return ship the order for the other box to arrive...

.. That box contained.. a reel with one (1!) part on it.   

So. Stupid.

[TheSteve]

They did this to me with a recent Digireel of CPU's I ordered. Wasn't the end of the world as it was only one extra swap on the PnP but still I was not impressed.
It is better than the time they wound my Digireel backwards so I had to re-reel it onto another spool to mount.

[bostonman]

Sorry, I'm slightly confused over this.

My understanding is that (as an example) I order fifty SMT 0805 resistors, they take a reel, unroll fifty, cut it, and that's it. If I order a reel, then I get the entire 5000 (?).

I only understood "cut tape" this entire time to be as stated above and a "reel" as an entire count (I believe 5000 is a typical reel).

I'm uncertain exactly what is taking place now.

On another note, I've never run into this because I buy parts for my own needs, but believe if I have a board house make a small quantity of PCBs (let's say ten), and each one has one resistor on it, I can't send the board house just ten because they need extra to feed the pick and place machine; I don't know what the amount is needed but believe this is what I heard at an old job.

[Ice-Tea]

There's an option (I think at most distris) to have that cut tape wound on a new reel so its easier to work with.

And yes, you would normally provide some % extra for losses. Bit more for small components.

[Smokey]

...
I placed an order with a bunch of digi-reels.  Just in case anyone does not know what that is, it's essentially a cut tape quantity that digikey then puts back on a reel for a $7 per line item charge so it can be used by a pick and place machine feeder. 
...

I'm talking about actual commercial CMs (not some dude that has a Chinese desktop pick and place in his garage).  All parts that go though the pick and place need to be on reels with leaders and enough extra to waste a few.  If you give them cut tape they will need to reel it.  Absolute last resort is hand placing.  All of that costs extra over just supplying reels.

If you don't supply parts to your cm they will usually have a set of reels that they own and sell you parts from.  This is easy for common parts that get used a lot and this costs the least.  If you need something else they need to price in the cost of getting those parts in a quantity they can run through the machine or add the cost of rereeling cut tape and adding a leader.  These are all services that typically cost more than just supplying your own reels.

Another thing that costs more is supplying parts on multiple reels because they need to stop the line and swap reels when one runs out which wastes time, which is why this digikey policy to split up digi reels is just absolutely stupid.

[kylehunter]

...
I placed an order with a bunch of digi-reels.  Just in case anyone does not know what that is, it's essentially a cut tape quantity that digikey then puts back on a reel for a $7 per line item charge so it can be used by a pick and place machine feeder. 
...

I'm talking about actual commercial CMs (not some dude that has a Chinese desktop pick and place in his garage).  All parts that go though the pick and place need to be on reels with leaders and enough extra to waste a few.  If you give them cut tape they will need to reel it.  Absolute last resort is hand placing.  All of that costs extra over just supplying reels.

If you don't supply parts to your cm they will usually have a set of reels that they own and sell you parts from.  This is easy for common parts that get used a lot and this costs the least.  If you need something else they need to price in the cost of getting those parts in a quantity they can run through the machine or add the cost of rereeling cut tape and adding a leader.  These are all services that typically cost more than just supplying your own reels.

Another thing that costs more is supplying parts on multiple reels because they need to stop the line and swap reels when one runs out which wastes time, which is why this digikey policy to split up digi reels is just absolutely stupid.

Eh, you're right in an ideal world. But we are a "commercial CM" and certainly must handle cut tapes regularly. Virtually all professional pick and place machines right now support cut tape and loose parts as a standard. The main few that focus on it are Mycronic, Europlacer, and any machine that supports feeder fingers.

For small batch and short turn jobs, we don't ever bother re-reeling or ordering digi-reels, we just use the cut tapes.

[Selectech]

It's not just Digi-Reels.
Since they opened up their new facility I'll often get a qty of 25 or 100 of something delivered in multiple small zip bags, often 1 to 3 parts per zip bag.
Very annoying.

[ajb]

Sorry, I'm slightly confused over this.

My understanding is that (as an example) I order fifty SMT 0805 resistors, they take a reel, unroll fifty, cut it, and that's it.

Actually, for a while now, Digikey has been prepacking cut tapes in varying quantities rather than cutting exactly what is ordered when it's ordered.  So if you order 500 parts on cut tape, you may get five strips of 100, or two strips of 250, or even a combination, each in its own labeled bag.  I'm sure it makes a lot of sense for them operationally, since the labor cost to pack cut tapes has to account for a big chunk of their costs on those a lot of those lower value parts.

[Smokey]

...
I placed an order with a bunch of digi-reels.  Just in case anyone does not know what that is, it's essentially a cut tape quantity that digikey then puts back on a reel for a $7 per line item charge so it can be used by a pick and place machine feeder. 
...

I'm talking about actual commercial CMs (not some dude that has a Chinese desktop pick and place in his garage).  All parts that go though the pick and place need to be on reels with leaders and enough extra to waste a few.  If you give them cut tape they will need to reel it.  Absolute last resort is hand placing.  All of that costs extra over just supplying reels.

If you don't supply parts to your cm they will usually have a set of reels that they own and sell you parts from.  This is easy for common parts that get used a lot and this costs the least.  If you need something else they need to price in the cost of getting those parts in a quantity they can run through the machine or add the cost of rereeling cut tape and adding a leader.  These are all services that typically cost more than just supplying your own reels.

Another thing that costs more is supplying parts on multiple reels because they need to stop the line and swap reels when one runs out which wastes time, which is why this digikey policy to split up digi reels is just absolutely stupid.

Eh, you're right in an ideal world. But we are a "commercial CM" and certainly must handle cut tapes regularly. Virtually all professional pick and place machines right now support cut tape and loose parts as a standard. The main few that focus on it are Mycronic, Europlacer, and any machine that supports feeder fingers.

For small batch and short turn jobs, we don't ever bother re-reeling or ordering digi-reels, we just use the cut tapes.

Interesting.  Do you charge extra when someone brings you cut tape vs reels?
(Said another way: do you just price the extra work into all small runs)

What does a cut tape feeder look like?

[thm_w]

Eh, you're right in an ideal world. But we are a "commercial CM" and certainly must handle cut tapes regularly. Virtually all professional pick and place machines right now support cut tape and loose parts as a standard. The main few that focus on it are Mycronic, Europlacer, and any machine that supports feeder fingers.

For small batch and short turn jobs, we don't ever bother re-reeling or ordering digi-reels, we just use the cut tapes.

OK you support cut tape, but do you care if your 500pc cut tape comes in 5 different tapes of 100pc each?

Are you happy to splice the loose tapes for free?

[thm_w]

What does a cut tape feeder look like?

[uer166]

I was recently at a small assembly house with 2 PnP lines and was surprised to learn that they PREFER cut tape to any kind of re-reeled setup. The bags just kinda hang there at the feeders and it seemed to work great for them

[48X24X48X]

I used to pay for these Digireel but I felt that the greenish/blue tape they used is not strong enough and snaps halfway through. Using a CL feeders would mean, it snap before reaching the wheel for the pull tape. This requires me to redo few times until the connection section went pass the pull tape wheel. It's annoying and waste time. So, I bought my own splicing tool and kept bits and pieces of left over tape reels of various sizes to make my own. You also need to buy the leader tape but that is cheap available everywhere. Both Mouser and Digikey does the re-reel service for USD7, LCSC for USD3 and while Farnell/E14 did it for free. A better way for short reel is making a cut tape holder and treat it like a tray. This is faster and save cost. You either 3D print your own tray or there are readily available tray for cut tapes in the market. There's always a better way to solve the problem. But if there are multiple joints in a reel and the joints are bad, that is awful when you pay USD7 for it.

[Smokey]

....
A better way for short reel is making a cut tape holder and treat it like a tray. This is faster and save cost. You either 3D print your own tray or there are readily available tray for cut tapes in the market. There's always a better way to solve the problem. But if there are multiple joints in a reel and the joints are bad, that is awful when you pay USD7 for it.

... I'm sure that would work if you were running your own machine.  I'm also sure my CM would laugh at me if I suggested he stop his line and 3d print fixtures to accommodate me and my inability to supply full reels :⁠-⁠)

[forrestc]

So my $0.02:

We gave up on any digi-reel or the like when we realized how cheap and easy it was to just splice things ourselves.  Usually we just add some leader tape to the cover tape and spool whatever cut tape they send us onto a reel (unless it's short).   If it's a bunch of short pieces, we'll go ahead and splice them together.   

When we were swamped, we also were splicing the next reel of high volume parts (like bypass caps and pullup resistors) onto the end of the previous reel when it got low - that way there was no machine downtime for swapping reels. 

Because we rarely, if ever, need to splice anything beyond 8mm I think we just have the 8mm splice stuff, maybe the 12mm.

The stuff we use for splices:


I think the cover tape extenders we use came from them as well, but I've recently noticed that the cover tape extenders are available for dirt cheap on aliexpress.  Probably the splice tape too, but for the cost, I'll likely keep buying the splices from smartsplice

[Psi]

My CM is fine with just raw cut tape, but I try to give them reels where possible. I doubt they would care that much about a component supplied on multiple reels.

However digikey shouldn't be supplying multiple reels where one of them only has a few parts on it, that's just stupid.

[forrestc]

However digikey shouldn't be supplying multiple reels where one of them only has a few parts on it, that's just stupid.

I don't think it's stupid if they supply them as follows:

1) Any quantity over the reel size is provided on full reels.   I.E. if I order 6000 parts, and the reel size is 4000, I should get one full reel, factory "sealed".

2) Any remaining quantity is given to me on at most two additional reels, each reel being from only one "source" reel.   Let's assume the 2000 I have left, and assume that digikey has 1500 on their 'partial reel'.  I should get that reel, with leader attached, probably still on the factory reel.  Then I should get the first 500 from another reel, with the factory leader, spooled onto a new reel.   The remaining 3500 on that reel then becomes the partial digikey reel for whoever orders next.    That way they can copy the manufacturer's traceability information to the reels/ordering so we know all of the factory manufacturing data which is on a given reel and which may vary from batch to batch (like manufacturing location and/or date).

That way, I get a factory traceable full reel.  I also get a factory reel with the remains of digikey's partial reel on it.  And, I get the first part of the next reel that will become digikey's partial reel.

[Smokey]

However digikey shouldn't be supplying multiple reels where one of them only has a few parts on it, that's just stupid.

I don't think it's stupid if they supply them as follows:

1) Any quantity over the reel size is provided on full reels.   I.E. if I order 6000 parts, and the reel size is 4000, I should get one full reel, factory "sealed".

2) Any remaining quantity is given to me on at most two additional reels, each reel being from only one "source" reel.   Let's assume the 2000 I have left, and assume that digikey has 1500 on their 'partial reel'.  I should get that reel, with leader attached, probably still on the factory reel.  Then I should get the first 500 from another reel, with the factory leader, spooled onto a new reel.   The remaining 3500 on that reel then becomes the partial digikey reel for whoever orders next.    That way they can copy the manufacturer's traceability information to the reels/ordering so we know all of the factory manufacturing data which is on a given reel and which may vary from batch to batch (like manufacturing location and/or date).

That way, I get a factory traceable full reel.  I also get a factory reel with the remains of digikey's partial reel on it.  And, I get the first part of the next reel that will become digikey's partial reel.

1) Duh.  Anything over a reel qty will obviously be shipped as a full reel.  I mean I guess you could order a full reel's quantity as cut tape, but then it's you being stupid.

2) Unacceptable.  Because this can (and apparently does) happen...   Your 2000 will be split up into 1 piece (but it's a traceable 1 piece!  Yay!), and 1999 pieces... A reel with 1 part on it is objectively stupid.

(This was part of my aborted order)

[forrestc]

1) Duh.  Anything over a reel qty will obviously be shipped as a full reel.  I mean I guess you could order a full reel's quantity as cut tape, but then it's you being stupid.

Not necessarily.   There are at least a couple distributors for which the only way that they will guarantee you a full reel is if you order them in full reel quantities and only full reel quantities.   So if you need 5000 PCS and the reel size is 4000, you have to order a reel of 4000, and a separate cut tape and/or "digireel-like" order for the remaining 1000, at whatever price break applies at 1000.   

And yes, I've had this experience.  The specific one I am thinking of seems to never ship full reels unless you say you have to have a full reel OR order exactly a full reel quantity.

2) Unacceptable.  Because this can (and apparently does) happen...   Your 2000 will be split up into 1 piece (but it's a traceable 1 piece!  Yay!), and 1999 pieces... A reel with 1 part on it is objectively stupid.

It's much bettter than getting 10 bags each with anywhere between 20 and 500 in each bag.  Or worse, them all poorly spliced together onto a single reel.

The problem with the "single tape piece" method is that the distributor ends up with lots and lots of odd-length pieces, and then some unlucky person gets all of the dregs in one order, or the distributor eats the leftovers.  If you want to have fun, go and order every last piece of a certain part from a distributor which doesn't do what digikey does - you'll usually end up the "10 bags" I described above.

If I know I'm getting exactly one or two reels for all the non-reel quantities in my order, even if on occasion one of the reels has a handful of pieces, I'm ok with that, especially if I know I'll NEVER see more than 2 partials if they use this method. 

I totally get the ridiculousness of how this appears.  On the other hand, once you start digging into traceability and anti-counterfeiting methods which are having to be done to avoid counterfeit components making it into critical electronics one starts to realize that a consistent methodology is required for robust supply chain traceability.  Having a pile of different-length trimmings that you then have to sort through to find the best one to cut another piece off to send to a customer is anything but consistent, and is going to be very difficult to keep the traceability intact.   So you have to come up with a method that can be used for every order no matter what the quantity.   The method I described where you ship full reels and then a maximum of two reels is consistent, repeatable, ensures FIFO, and yes, has the disadvantage that the customer gets two separate reels fairly frequently, and sometimes gets a ridiculously small quantity on one reel.   Remember that digi-key sells to companies who need traceability, so they have to use methods which enable them to do so.

It would be nice if you could specify something like "splice all my extras onto one reel".  Or, specify some minimum qty you'll take if they get down to a ridiculously small quantity on a separate reel.  For your example order, there is a good chance that I personally would have been fine with a single reel of 1999 if they sold it at the qty 2000 per-piece price.  If the 1999 on the "partial" reel, and when they counted them they discovered they needed a single one to get to the 2000 you ordered, then leaving the 1 part off isn't unreasonable if you agree to this.  Likewise, if the 1 pc was the leftover part, they should have either just gifted that to the previous order, or tossed it (unless it's expensive enough that it's more than what a re-reel costs).  But all of this requires judgement and complicates the fulfillment process which equates to more, better-skilled employees which are really hard to hire and keep anymore.

[kylehunter]

...
I placed an order with a bunch of digi-reels.  Just in case anyone does not know what that is, it's essentially a cut tape quantity that digikey then puts back on a reel for a $7 per line item charge so it can be used by a pick and place machine feeder. 
...

I'm talking about actual commercial CMs (not some dude that has a Chinese desktop pick and place in his garage).  All parts that go though the pick and place need to be on reels with leaders and enough extra to waste a few.  If you give them cut tape they will need to reel it.  Absolute last resort is hand placing.  All of that costs extra over just supplying reels.

If you don't supply parts to your cm they will usually have a set of reels that they own and sell you parts from.  This is easy for common parts that get used a lot and this costs the least.  If you need something else they need to price in the cost of getting those parts in a quantity they can run through the machine or add the cost of rereeling cut tape and adding a leader.  These are all services that typically cost more than just supplying your own reels.

Another thing that costs more is supplying parts on multiple reels because they need to stop the line and swap reels when one runs out which wastes time, which is why this digikey policy to split up digi reels is just absolutely stupid.

Eh, you're right in an ideal world. But we are a "commercial CM" and certainly must handle cut tapes regularly. Virtually all professional pick and place machines right now support cut tape and loose parts as a standard. The main few that focus on it are Mycronic, Europlacer, and any machine that supports feeder fingers.

For small batch and short turn jobs, we don't ever bother re-reeling or ordering digi-reels, we just use the cut tapes.

Interesting.  Do you charge extra when someone brings you cut tape vs reels?
(Said another way: do you just price the extra work into all small runs)

What does a cut tape feeder look like?

Nah we don't. It really doesn't add any time, and we don't even have a "proper" cut tape solution and must add a leader. See the feeder fingers video already posted and also MyCronic's Agilis:

[loki42]

How much do those splices cost each?  If they aren't pricey I'll give that a go.  Some suppliers don't give enough cover tape even on full reels.