who replaced radio shack?
 

The old man that sold ham stuff, computer parts, old computer parts, etc. died a year or so ago, and his shop is now closed and packed up and gone.

Son needs to order some capacitors, etc. to fix a TV and he's tried "from china" a few times with no luck, either never getting the parts, getting wrong parts, etc.

So... where is a US based retailer for what we used the good electronic supply places for in the 70s and 80s and 90s?

Looking for bits and bobs, bread boards, leds, diodes, capacitors, resistors, etc and so forth. I realize it will be chinese made products (or worse if possible to go cheaper... ) but at least a US based vendor would be nice.

Unfortunately there is no more "one stop shop".

Find a local Maker Shop.

They may not carry the stuff but they will know where to source it.

Try these guys, I have picked up a few obscure parts from them.

https://www.mouser.com

Internet, or larger places like Fry's or Microcenter.

https://www.mouser.com/


or


https://www.jameco.com

Amazon, Fry's and (surprisingly) Microcenter. We also have a local shop with everything, but it takes 45 minutes to find something because it looks like your cool cousin's basement in there...

Mouser

https://www.mouser.com/

Digikey

https://www.digikey.com/

Allied Electronics

https://www.alliedelec.com/

We still have a local supplier that also does mail order

Ace Electronics

https://www.ace4parts.com/

I use all of these and Amazon

Digikey, Amazon, McMaster-Carr, etc.

In Canada, Radio Shack became ‘The Source’ quite a few years ago. Now they only sell cell phones, overpriced chinesium RC cars, and wifi crap. The staff are pimple nosed kids who wouldn’t know a capacitor from a resistor, let alone help you pick out a potentiometer from the racks that they used to have at the back of the Radio Shack. My elderly father goes to The Source for help with his cell phone and computer all the time... I’m sure they cringe when they see him coming.

I remember when Radio Shack had dozen + aisles full of discrete components, kits any everything electronic. Now they barely got a 4' x 6' peg board for a few resistors/capacitors.

Like many leading company in their prime, they spend billions on R&D (personal computer in R.S. case) only to see clones under cutting them so they never recoup their money.

Remember the Tandy?

I went to the local fry's store last week.
It looked like they are going out of business.
Half the shelves are empty, they were stocking literally 1/3 of what they normally do and the first several rows were filled with that "as seen on TV" infomercial crap.

Maybe they were going through a major reorg, maybe remodelling, but the store was empty of merchandise and customers (and employees).
I walked around and eventually found a frys employee and asked him where I could find a cat 5E cable adapter thingy, he just said they don't have it.

I chalked it up to just another internet victim.

The TRS-80 was called the Trash-80 for a reason. Everyone tried to make a PC about then. As soon as IBM got into the race, it was over. CPM-86 was a terrible OS.

We had one here locally since the 70's. A kid in high school who I knew through my nephew started his career there some years back. Worked his way up and then bought the franchise from the original owner @ 10 years ago - which was odd I thought, as the parent company had already been through at least 1 BK.

He stayed with it.......painfully to almost the very end....

FWIW, our local Fry's Electronics looks like an old Soviet supermarket with bare shelves. I asked if they were going out of business and an employee told me the Chinese tariffs had really put a dent in their supply chain. I could not get some of the most basic toggle switches and capacitors.

It's hard to buy that stuff online, as the shipping is often more than the product and I just never need enough to get the free shipping. For tube amp stuff I don't need right away, I order from tubesandmore.com. They're local to me, but it's a long drive.

First off, I salute your boy for tinkering with electronics. Thats a rare skill / interest for kids today.


I've got tons of spare components, and digital gauges, switches and such.


PM me your mailing address and a box of goodies will come his way.

50 years ago my dad bought me a radio shack 65 in 1 electrical kit.

I picked up 3 electrical engineering degrees and lots of goodies/parts over the years in the industry

would love to pass my gold onto the next generation.

Tinkering is cool again, there's a whole generation of kids that are self taught in electronics and coding using Arduino. I'm a member of our local "maker space", where people are collaborating and working with everything from electronics to a full metal shop to wood, clay, fabric, jewellery, etc. Someone building a robot next to someone making full leather armor for cosplay next to someone making a new park bench.

I've bought from these guys in the past...
https://www.tubesandmore.com/products/capacitors?filters=&page=

When I was a little kid, I drooled over a catalog like this one and figured out how long I'd have to save my allowance ($1 per month) before I could get my hands on one of the kits.
When I got a little older I would occasionally ride my bike to the heathkit shop about 5 miles away, even though I still didn't have money to buy anything.
That seems like a different world now.



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1571336901.jpg

Here in Calgary we have about three good sized electronic parts retailers, surely you must have something in your area.

Digikey is a reliable org, we order a fair amount from them at work and have had no issues.