I buy most of my electronic supplies from Great Plains Electronics. Great service, great prices.

I like mouser.com they seem to always ship pretty fast and have a nice selection.

I would be cautious about their supply, might be gray market.

Stick with GPE, Mouser or DigiKey.

Electronic components on amazon are usually marked up. Get them directly from a retailer instead.

GPE, mouser, digikey, Jameco (just be aware of possible counterfeit chips/transistors), big daddy enterprises, docent electronics, plus a few others.

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pinball_Parts_Suppliers

GPE is the best!!!

I always take 1N4007 instead of 1N4004, price is the same.

How many do you need of each? If you do not want too many, I will make you a gift, I have thousends of them here.

Tayda is probably the cheapest with fastest shipping; .02 cents each

https://www.taydaelectronics.com/diodes/standard/1n4007-1a-1000v-rectifier-diode.html

Sometimes I just hop in my car and get them at the local electronics store.

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That's where I've taken my TV to be repaired

We just pull all the tubes out and take them to the local drug store. They have a tester and all the replacements we need.

And my old man has the ultimate set of tools.

I remember riding my bike to my local electronics distributor/store. And it was not RadioShack. Unfortunately, they are out of business. There is nothing around local anymore. One place that is an hour away only carries NTE subs, and I'm not a fan.

I hate having to order resistors and paying for shipping and having to wait. I order extra of everything and have built up a stock. However, having every datasheet at your finger tip when using Mouser, DigiKey and the like is powerful.

Radio Shacks are all but gone, but we have a giant electronics store chain called Fry's. So big they have full size model of a space shuttle nose right in the middle of the place.

I do however prefer Orvac's. Much smaller and a few blocks from my house.

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Some Microcenter stores have a nice collection of common parts and Hakko soldering tips too.

Got most everything I need when I'm in the middle of a project and don't want to wait for the UPS guy to find my house.

I'm East coast. No Fry's. However, when I was in California, I visited Fry's frequently.

There is a Micro place, but I have never entered. I assumed it was the last box store to offer motherboards, drives, etc. I deal with that enough at work, I have no interest in my free time. That and software; yuck.

Place is huge, huh? I guess they have a few locations across the country.

Neat thing is before I drive over there, I can check inventory online, and it is usually fairly accurate.

I'm spoiled as I can just zoom down the road 30 minutes to HuaQianBei - probably the largest electronics market in the world. If I don't want to go there then Taobao is always a good option for me as everything is available and usually overnight delivery for less than $2.

The flower ball is at the entrance to the market buildings (about 30 buildings in the electronics area) and the tall, odd shaped, building is probably the most well known one in HQB, the SEG electronics building (pronounced "Sigh-Ga")

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What other diodes were you looking for?

International Rectifier makes good diodes. How I miss Olson Electronics, Lafayette Radio Supply and of course, Poly Paks.

90% of the time I buy from mouser... going through past orders and saved kits makes it quick and easy. Fry’s is a few hours away but always pick up a few random things there when in the area.

I buy 1N4007 and 1N4148 diodes from Jameco:

https://www.jameco.com/z/1N4007-Major-Brands-1000-Volt-1-Amp-Silicon-Rectifier-Diode_36011.html

https://www.jameco.com/z/1N4148--Major-Brands-100V-Small-Signal-Switching-Diode_36038.html

I thought GPE was going out of business....Ed used to be my go to, but there's alot of out of stock items, and it's been that way for awhile. I went to buy simple 35W wire lead rectifiers (metallic) and even those are OOS. IN4004's are OOS. Every single rebuild kit across all platforms is OOS.

We have a small Ma and Pa electronics store here in Kalamazoo. Walk inside and it's like going back 50 years...even their website is from the 1990's. I can't imagine how they even stay in business.

http://www.kenselectronics.com/

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Anyone ordering from LCSC? It is like the Digikey of Shenzhen. They have some western brands but most of it is made in China stuff with Chinese datasheets.

I bought some stuff to see whats up after seeing a youtube video about them.

https://lcsc.com

For USA stuff arrow electronics has been my go to. Free overnight shipping. Usually you can find a coupon online. Huge selection. Usually the best price, and if not that price match. Start a chat box on the website and send a link to the better price. They give you a code to adjust.... still get the free overnight shipping.

http://arrow.com

online components or future electronics are both good too, but arrow usually wins my money with the free overnight shipping and coupons.

That website is something to behold...why are the prices in European format?

Do they still have free overnight shipping? They seem not to be advertising it.

Tayda is great, I have bought lots of stuff from them. I also get a lot of maker bits and pieces from Aliexpress, if you are an extreme cheapa$$ and you don’t mind waiting several weeks that is the way to go for many items. There can be some problems on occasion such as things not showing up, but I have never had an issue making a claim. But what I do now is try to funnel all my business through a store there called WAVGAT. I have never had any issues with them and they give good customer service and prompt delivery (considering it comes from China).

I noticed that too and I have no idea why. Next time I go there I'll use some left over Euros I have and see what they say.

No doubt! First thing on the menu- CB antenna parts.

yep, but not overnight on all items. My last order half of it came from Nevada and the rest was Germany. Both still free, but the German parts took a few days to get. I think it was fedex that delivered... maybe ups.

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I like Tayda Electronics too. They also have regular 10-15% coupons you can find on facebook. I buy all the IC sockets I use from there. They are comparable to ADAM-TECH IC sockets you can get from places like future electronics. They are from Thailand will ship by DHL and I get it in usually two business days. If you pick there basic shipping it takes about a week. They batch up orders and send them to the USA where someone repacks them into a priority mail box and sends to you in the final leg.

Breaker Breaker 1-9...What's your 10-20? 10-7, I'm out.

Every car we had in the 70s had a CB...my dad loved them.

Is anyone putting together standard rebuild kits anymore? GPE used to but they have all been out of stock for awhile. Some of you mouser guru's could probably make a few bucks repackaging components for rebuilding standard WMS era power boards for us lazy sorts that don't want to pick parts.

I guess truckers still use them?

Mouser not that hard but it can be intimidating with so many options. For electro cap rebuilds here is what I'd recommend.

Find a brand of cap you like. Say Nichicon, and look at the series chart.

http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/Nichicon/Nichicon%20Series%20Chart.pdf

For older WMS stuff they used lots of axial caps, so Nichicon VX series is a general purpose axial electrolytic capacitor. So pick Nichicon brand. Pick axial aluminum electrolytic caps (or pick your series, VX). Then you can set farad rating and voltage. Hold shift to select multiple in one drill down category

Here would be all of mousers in stock nichicon axial electrolytic caps 6800uF to 15000uF with 25-50v max voltage rating
https://www.mouser.com/Nichicon/Passive-Components/Capacitors/Aluminum-Electrolytic-Capacitors/Aluminum-Electrolytic-Capacitors-Axial-Leaded/_/N-fb8xj?P=1z0zlbmZ1z0wqtnZ1z0wqs8Z1z0wqttZ1yx4awyZ1yx4atvZ1yx4avv

If you want to make "kits" you can collect all your part numbers and quantities and use the bill of materials tools. You can create spreadsheets and etc.
https://www.mouser.com/Tools/Tools.aspx

Someone could make and share the rebuild kit BOMs for mouser. Not it...

I just looked at GPE’s kits and ordered the components from those details. It lists not only what the originals were, but what the GPE kit was replacing it with if it is different. Some out of obsolescence, some as improvements. Sure its more work but then i just ordered multiples of each since i have several similar generation Williams games. And i’m a sucker for the bulk discounts. If i ever have a question i can email Ed and he will respond fairly quickly. Thats the service i appreciate and why i buy my components from him when i can.

Too late....everyone else said not it while you were writing

Good idea....but some of the parts from the kits are out of stock too. Like metal body wire lead bridges. I don't like the plastic ones

Nah, I keep going... and going... and going.

Note that there's a reason why the full metal body bridges are typically cheaper than the molded bridges.
The full metal bridges are made in China and now only pushed by Chinese companies. I normally order about 2K of these once per year but won't buy them while the Tariffs are in place... and not sure I will buy them after the tariffs end. I do have the *better* molded bridges -- GBPC3504W.
The molded bridges tend to be be better quality than the full (pot)metal bridge rectifiers - they tend to have diodes with lower forward voltage drops (less heat). Plus the molded body bridges have heat slugs that have a lower thermal resistance which makes them better at dissipating heat better than the full metal bridges.

Also, I have plenty of 1N4004's and 1N4007's. Not sure why my website says I am out of 4004's - I will fix that later.

As far as kits - my other job has me working such long hours anymore that I never have time to make kits.
I considered turning off the kits pages until I can get kits made again but thought I would leave them up until I get replacement pages posted that list which capacitors should be used with each board. This way people can order the caps individually in the meantime.
And .. I am also contemplating changing my axial capacitor source. Won't pursue that until January.

Great Ed. Glad to see you're still around and kicking!! I'm putting together a parts list to rebuild my BSD power and high voltage. I understand the delimma about assembling the kits. Maybe just assemble them as they are orderd? If I'm putting all the parts individeally in my cart don't you have to assemble them anyway? Alternatively what might be cool is just put links in the kits to buy each part...I know that takes Web development and probably not a priority, might would make it easy to buy the parts required for a rebuild without having to pre assemble kits.

GPE is always my first go to source - what other pinball specific vendor posts on Pinside & freely gives great advise?
Why would you buy anywhere else unless you have no other choice (my secondary supplier is usually Digikey)

Ed, you rock.

I was buying Fairchild GBPC3506W. When the on semi buyout went through and the boxes where no longer fairchild branded i noticed those bridges got more expensive and a bunch of usual suspects where sold out.

I bought some "COMCHIP" branded GBPC3506W which for sure has a less substantial and thinner case. Data sheets claim pretty much the same stuff, but I can assume the fairchild ones dissipated heat better.

Packing up kits im sure is a huge time sink. Takes longer than most people probably imagine. Need a trained helper monkey or something.

Yeah... ON-Semi did raise the prices, dammit.

You know what really irritates me lately?
Both Bussmann and Littelfuse were making fuses in the US.
Bussmann thought they weren't making enough money per fuse so moved manufacturing from US to Taiwan. Of course their costs went way down but prices crept up a hair. Yep, pocketed the difference. When that happened - I switched my buying over to Littelfuse. Year or so later, Littelfuse followed and moved manufacturing from US to China. Like Buss, no break for the consumer. So pretty much didn't matter which I used and they were both still good quality fuses at reasonable prices. Pretty much small price increases every year since to match inflation.
BUT -- this year there was a Tariff imposed on the Chinese products which hiked the Littelfuse prices by 25%. Bussmann was completely unaffected since their parts were coming from Taiwan. You'd think Bussmann would clean up on sales since Littelfuse got bumped in cost by 25%. But noooo.... Bussmann had to put the squeeze on us by hiking their prices by 20%. So they got a huge income increase and still beat out Littelfuse. I sure hope Littelfuse learns from this and returns mfg back to US. If they did, I'd drop Bussmann in a minute.

Sorry - deviated a bit and went on a rant...

Standard corporate practice. Goes back to the $75.00 Japanese color teevee tariff imposed by Nixon. Done to help US teevee companies compete with Sony & Mantushita/Panasonic.
What did Motorola, Sylvania, Magnavox, Zenith, GE etc do? Immediately raised their prices by $75.00 and put it in their pockets.

One by one, they went out of business......

looks like great plains has 1n4004 is back in stock. Wish they were last week when I did restock order. But I was happy to find that the new bottom entry connectors were in.

Ed, I sent you a PM...
Do you have any 15000uf 25v caps for power supply rebuilds? And the 100uf 200v cap?

Thanks Ed you helped me out with a part last year i havent forgotten. You have my business anytime.
Raff

I see today that Bussmann fuses are back down to a bit above their old 'pre-tarrif' prices. Not quite to where they were - still about a 2 cent ea price increase but far better than the grotesque increase I saw in November.