Page 79 - Make Your Own PCBs with EAGLE from Schematic Designs to Finished Boards
P. 79
exotic. Component suppliers that are particularly suited to the hobbyist include
• Sparkfun: www.sparkfun.com
• Adafruit: www.adafruit.com
• Maplins (UK): www.maplins.com
• RadioShack: www.radioshack.com
None of these has an exhaustive range of components, and they are not particularly cheap, but they
combine component sales with modules and very good reference materials and tutorials.
Perhaps the next tier of supplier has component suppliers that have a much wider range, are happy
to supply in small quantities, and do not always have a minimum order value. These include
• Mouser: www.mouser.com
• Digikey: www.digikey.com
The top tier of component suppliers can supply almost any part that is in production. They supply
mostly to the electronics industry, and their prices often can be surprisingly competitive on some
lines, especially if you are buying in quantity. The most prominent of these are
• Farnell (worldwide): www.farnell.com
• Newark (United States): www.newark.com (owned by Farnell)
• CPC (United Kingdom): cpc.farnell.com
• RadioSpares (worldwide): www.rs-components.com
A great web resource for tracking down parts is Octopart (www.octopart.com). This is a
component search engine. You just type in the part name, and it will give you a list of suppliers
selling the part and their prices.
Often the cheapest place to get components is using eBay. Large quantities of components such as
LEDs can be bought directly from China for a very low price.
Paper PCB
It is always difficult to know that the component you have in your hand will exactly fit a particular
footprint. This is particularly the case for connectors and unusual components, especially if the
components have been scavenged or found in your personal stock of components.
A good way to check that you have the right component is to print out a paper PCB from EAGLE
so that you can hold the components against the paper to check the footprints. It is not much effort to
go to and much better than having made a batch of useless PCBs.
Summary
