Proton BASIC Community

Hi all

I recently needed to reorder 50 populated PCBs, I get them done at PCBWay. They purchase the main parts from the likes of Mouser and Digikey. I looked before I ordered on the availability of the pic. Its a 16f1516. None in stock anywhere so thought PCBWay will not be able to proceed. In fact they did have the parts. Then I checked the cost of the comps. The pic that used to cost ~£1.00 now is $6.50. So someone is hording them and ripping off joe manufacturer like me.

I needs the parts and am grateful they found some but seriously I see not available or deliveries in 1 + years. How can you do business these days when you cannot get the parts.

Tim

Tim it is ridiculous to say the least with lead time up to 45 Weeks and everyone trying to screw the next person with Greed as the order of the day.
I need to do a new design and wanted to post today to ask about getting supplies from Chinese Suppliers like LCSC and the General Quality of Caps etc from them, which is a concern?

I normally use parts from Digikey which is expensive but I prefer branded parts but, this is becoming a massive challenge as you cannot even get standard Microchips etc?
I need to find a Reputable manufacturer of small Solar panels (3Watts) which will give me at lease a guaranteed 10 Years Life span at a reasonable price ?
Hopefully someone can advise a decent company to try?

Regards
Craig   

The MCU that I purchased for the latest 4.69 USD from my constant supplier. I asked for the current price, he gave a price of 60.81 USD. I asked for a price from another supplier, and he gave a price of 397 USD after 48 weeks (Intel i7 processor can be bought at this price    ). I ordered what I found cheap on Aliepress. At least 10 different sellers all canceled the order or increased the price 10-15 times later. 

But surprisingly the dspic30 series is still affordable.

Best regards.

Unfortunately, that is capitalism. Corrupt to the core and nothing else matters but money and power! Look for a weakness and exploit it fully, because there are feable excuses to mask the lies and make more and more money! Heck.... People go to university to learn how to be fraudulant and devious and tell lies that are, legally, not classed as lies. It's called marketeering and/or being a lawyer. LOL

Our global civilisation is actually getting close to where the Romans were just before their civlisation collapsed. With greed and capitalism and high taxes, and normal people actually starving to death in there thousands, while the rich got richer and more corrupt. So when they were invaded, the vast majority of the roman people and soldiers let it happen because it could not be worse than what was already in control. :-) The rich had mostly moved to the city of constantinople, which was their "play area", but still "ripped off" the people in the rest of the empire. Humans do not learn from history, because greed and control takes over.

I still think that humans are evolution's biggest mistake and once it has eradicated the parasite that is the evil hairless ape, it will not make that mistake again in a hurry. But, thankfully, the planet still has a lot of time left in its lifespan. The human parasite is like a bad plaque that will kill an awful lot of things on the planet, and hopefully, enough of them so it cannot survive itself. But it cannot kill everything, as much as it wants too so it can have more control and money. :-) Then the planet will get on with being the beautiful blue dot in space without the parasite present for its remaining 2 or 3 thousand million years.

Hello all,

I guess most of us are facing the same problems with the IC suppliers ... here's something I found:

Microchip offers a sample program - many of the chips missing on the market are still available as samples, of course in minimum quantities but in the last months this IC source saved me couple of times.

Ordering through Ali-express is very risky and most of the time it is a substandard QC rejected parts that you get. As an example:

- few months ago I got a cheap batch of 50 pcs ADXL345 3D acceleration sensors. All of those were in original reel, however when I started installing and testing them, at least 10 were defective, 30 were with a major offset on 1 axis  and only about 10 were good to use.

- same with SPL06-001 barometric sensors - out of 100pcs, about 20 were dead! Again in original reel. 

Mchip managed to supply me with some 25k80's in the right package. So for now my R/D work is continuing.

It used to be that you would come up with a project and think a pic and a sensor and I can make that better. Now I'm thinking how can I eliminate the electronics.

Know the Pain!!  We have had to redesign over 50 of our products in the last 18 months due to shortages/price increases/EOL. One MCU we use was $0.025 and has ramped to $0.125 and more when and IF we can get hold of them.  DC-DC converters are also a real pain in the butt to get hold of in >> 1M qty and many manufacturers are at capacity, increased production and still at capacity and have non cancellable orders so small volume (the likes of the disti chain) are paying premium and cashing in on it.  Lead times for silicon is typically out at 50 - 70 weeks so its a purchasing nightmare.  Massive companies are running into all sorts of financial issues procuring parts vs cashflow and payment terms.

Trying to develop new products to a timescale and cost target is almost impossible with the current climate pushes your design skills to the limits!

J