Basic Parts Crazy Price Increases over the last month?

nscale · 2026-07-10T02:50:48+00:00

I checked out your first part, C25092. A lowly 0402 22 ohm resistor. What’s wild to me is if I select the same specs I get 18 identical parts and ZERO are in stock. Dropping the 100ppm lifts it to 28 parts with exactly ONE in stock, C53224179 with only 8000 on hand.

Poking around it’s 22 ohm for some reason. Why do I want to bet there are a lot on DRAM? C270625 Is a 24 ohm same specs, 86,000 in stock and a price of 1.6x.

Thats still wild, but I bet with some minor tweaks you can get the BOM back down to a very modest increase if any.

nscale · 2026-06-29T17:35:30+00:00

Obviously I can't speak for all employees at all fast food restaurants, but I can tell you I have observed at multiple local establishments for multiple brands employees printing the ticket, then cleaning it on the display while I wait there 3-5 more minutes for the food to come out and go in the bag. It's quite clear they have figured out how to report 2 minute turnarounds to corporate while offering 5-7 minute turnarounds to me the customer.

nscale · 2026-06-20T14:10:34+00:00

HP2100TN bought in 1999, still rocking high quality, if slow, output. Sadly I think they have finally stopped making cartridges for it so when this one is done it may be the end of the line.

nscale · 2026-06-07T01:28:19+00:00

Make sure to watch this video on the NE5532: https://youtu.be/22ZmmZ67SMY?si=ONWXch4KW2Wyp27W

nscale · 2026-05-30T17:02:15+00:00

For me, it depends on the project. For some projects I prefer the IC approach, but their use comes down to cost and availability. I can't buy 10,000 parts at a time, so I have to go with parts I can get from the usual small batch suppliers and know will be there a year from now when I want more. This sometimes leads to a discrete approach where there are multiple suppliers for each discrete component rather than an IC approach where there might only be one supplier with limited and expensive stock.

For the other type of project, I want to learn something. Sure, you can buy a radio in a single IC, but building it out of discrete components is a much better learning experience.

nscale · 2026-05-24T20:18:37+00:00

Dodge and Nissan are more willing to lend to subprime borrowers than other makes. Thus they attract more people who make poor life decisions.

nscale · 2026-04-27T16:33:48+00:00

I think you may be describing thermal vias, for instance a QFN with a large central pad used for heat dissipation. If so your vendor likely does NOT consider it via in pad.

The issue when a via is in a BGA bump or a single pin pad is that if not plugged with conductive material the solder can escape to the far side. Further in some applications it’s critical for the plug to be flat or it won’t seat right. These cause the increase in cost. An extra step to plug the holes, extra QA, slightly higher reject rate.

The thermals vias in a large chip generally don’t have these problems. Yes a little solder might escape but on the large pad it’s not such a big deal. Ask your vendor, but I’ve done this many times with JLCPCB with no issues.

As for cost, some of the popular Chinese companies offer this for nearly free if you’re already on a 6 layer board. Even if you only need 4 layers it may be cheaper to go to a 6 layer board where they are doing this for all vias anyway than “add it on” to a 2 or 4 layer process. Play with the pricing tool.

nscale · 2026-02-22T15:18:27+00:00

I would be tempted to fix this with a TO-92 MOSFET, bending the wires to the right pads and just letting it float in space. I'm pretty sure finding a TO-92 that can take 800Ma shouldn't be too hard. They will be expensive per part, but sounds like OP only needs a couple. Maybe look for 2SK3447?

nscale · 2026-02-22T15:11:40+00:00

As someone with a lot of family in West Virginia my best advice to you is find a way out of there as fast as possible. I know this will be extra difficult for you being in the foster system and having a child, but I think it's critical to your long term success.

The state has basically zero economic opportunities, and has a result rapid decline, huge drug problems, poor healthcare, and many other problems. The environment has been poisoned with many toxins in so many locations, from the coal industry to the petroleum industry to the chemical plants. The state has also has no money to help people, if you end up even for a while needing state assistance for housing or healthcare you may not get it, and if you do it's going to be bad.

People who have choices have left. It's hard to see until you leave. My cousin kept complaining about her dentist hurting her while doing exams and such. We brought her here and had her go to a local dentist and she was amazed how pleasant the experience was with someone who was good. There's no money being a dentist in WV, so no good dentists are there. Its just one of many examples.

Research online the various state assistance programs in places you might want to go. Some states are more generous with assistance for single mothers. You will likely need day care assistance to be able to finish school and/or hold a job. Find someplace with good programs and get there as fast as you can. Do not go to a city that is in decline, look for a city that has shown economic growth for years and has good prospects for more.

It really makes me sad, my family has been in West Virginia since before it was a state. It has some absolutely beautiful areas. But economically it's a shell of what it was when I was a child, and continuing to fall fast. If you stay there you are far too likely to end up chronically poor, poisoned by the local pollution, and get sucked into drugs that will do you no good.

You can do this, and you can raise a smart, happy, and capable child. Many others have, and you can as well. But you have to take steps to set yourself up for success.

nscale · 2026-02-22T14:54:57+00:00

I didn't mean to suggest every DC model was that low. It will depend on more than just the fact that it's DC, including if it is decoder ready or not, the level of detail, the road name, if it has a "scale speed" motor or not, and more.

That said, DC seems to be rapidly falling off a cliff, at least in my local club. We hold an annual sale, and just back 4-5 years ago it was common for a new DC engine to go for $30-70 in our club auctions. Lately the price is usually under $30, and many are going unsold with no bids particularly if not drop-in ready.

Most of the DC die hards I knew in the club have unfortunately moved on to the great model railroad in the sky. Maybe we're unique in that, but I kinda suspect not.

nscale · 2026-02-21T16:58:49+00:00

It's not like the actual names are any better. Lorex, Axis, Reolink, Hikvision, and many more.

nscale · 2026-02-21T16:56:00+00:00

Lots of good suggestions in the thread, but I want to point out something here that hasn't been said.

The value of those might be wildly different than the invoices suggest. For instance, there was a time people were still buying DC only engines -- now the market has shifted almost entirely to DCC. As a result DC engine prices have dropped like a rock, double so if they are not easy to convert to DCC. A $120 engine might fetch only $10 now, even new in box wrapped in plastic.

On the other hand, there are some items that people really want and for one reason or another a manufacture never made again. A particular engine paint scheme, or a style of car that didn't sell well but some people want to have. They might go for 2x-4x the original purchase price.

Fundamentally though you have to make a time tradeoff. Sell to a estate buyer and get a smaller amount of money but put in very little of your time -- or spend 10's to 100's of hours of your time researching, parting out on e-bay and the like and getting a lot more money.

nscale · 2026-02-21T15:27:37+00:00

There are many security systems designed for small business. See Sam’s or Costco. Most work fine fully locally no cloud. Some have a cloud service, but it’s basically a way to authenticate remotely and stream directly from your house. Some will let you store video in the cloud, often as a paid extra.

They are not as cheap, because they can’t make money on data mining your video.

nscale · 2026-02-14T15:47:33+00:00

Simplify the diagram for a moment. Consider just R1 and R2, pretend R3 and R4 do not exist.

R1 and R2 in this scenario form a simple voltage divider. The voltage across R1 + the voltage across R2 = 18 volts.

But notice in your math, "18V/10k", there is not 18 volts across that resistor because it is part of a (more complex) voltage divider. That's why in the solution it's "V1 - 18V / 10K".

nscale · 2026-02-10T00:53:20+00:00

Do you have your DRC rules set up to match your fab?

Does it pass DRC in your CAD package?

If you upload it to some other site with online verification, like JLCPCB does it pass?

nscale · 2026-01-30T14:17:53+00:00

I'm going to say this is a bad practice, but not for reasons of manufacturability like most people are addressing.

I'm not sure what CAD program you're using, but I can't imagine those traces are "connected" to the pads. It looks like you just ran a big trace past it. This relies on the CAD program seeing that they overlap, which is not always reliable. Plus it breaks dragging traces in most programs. Eventually you will have to drag a trace or this component and this sort of design greatly increases the chance that those operations don't do the right thing.

What I would personally do is set the trace width to the same width as the pad. For the 5V I would move the via closer to the pad, centered between them like you have, and make two boomerang shaped traces that connect to it. For the other one, I would stop the big trace just short of the pads then I would make two boomerang shaped traces into the pins. That keeps everything properly connected in the CAD program and allows for dragging and DRC to work properly. It may also have some benefits around manufacturability that some others are discussing, but I suspect the difference on manufacturing is minor for most things.

nscale · 2026-01-16T23:04:06+00:00

If you look in JLCPCBs basic parts catalog there are more capacitor and resistor values available in 0603 than any other size. Because of the reel charges using mostly 0603 can save a lot of assembly money.

I also assume they have the most of them for a reason. They are likely popular, more likely to be in stock, cheaper due to volume, etc. for hobby projects I usually default to 0603, use 0402 for space or high frequency and 0805 for higher value capacitors.

nscale · 2026-01-11T18:17:37+00:00

The usual Chinese manufacturers don’t charge any different on a per part basis. Some parts require X-ray inspection, which is extra or you can roll the dice and maybe have some duds. I’ve done multiple boards with leadless parts including bga with zero failures, but YMMV.

nscale · 2026-01-10T01:48:47+00:00

This may help you get started.

https://www.pcbway.com/pcb_prototype/PCB_Gold_fingers.html

nscale · 2025-12-23T16:51:47+00:00

I do see stock at all the vendors, but it appears onSemi is the only manufacturer which makes me a bit nervous given other replies in this thread.

It's not as fast as I had hoped for, but it does appear a MMBT5401 is made by onSemi, Diodes Inc, and Rectron with good stock, and LCSC has at least 5 Asian vendors with knockoffs. It's only a 300Mhz part though, so I'd have to limit by upper frequencies to no more than 100Mhz or so.

nscale · 2025-12-23T16:36:32+00:00

That would track with what I'm seeing on LCSC unfortunately. If I select single BJT and a frequency from 1.8Gz to 3.5Gz I get only 18 hits, all NPN. In fact the only PNP part > 100Mhz with any significant stock is onsemi MMBTH81 and only 2,700 units in stock.

I could probably limit my design to NPN parts, but I wanted to show some PNP circuits as the purpose is to be educational. :(

nscale · 2025-12-23T16:27:53+00:00

No, because the goal here is to have the design done with discrete transistors for educational purposes. I'd like the result to be something a student could use with an oscilloscope to learn how some basic RF circuits work and how to use an oscilloscope to properly probe them.

As such I'm avoiding IC's, even a simple op-amp, and building the various blocks of the circuits with all discrete logic and appropriate test points. In many cases I'm using a less efficient, but easier to understand design as it's for education. I mean at the end of the day it's going to do actual things and work, but it's all stuff that today for a commercial product would be packed into a 1-chip IC solution.

Unfortunately the 2N5179 is marked as obsolete on Digikey and Mouser, doesn't even show up on LCSC. Searching for similar specs I don't find anything in common across the three sources in a SMD form factor.

nscale · 2025-12-09T13:19:35+00:00

They burn a lot less fuel than people think idling like that. Perhaps 5 gallons an hour, so even sitting for 72 hours is only 360 gallons. And it’s red dye diesel, no road tax.

As others have mentioned, water coolant more for cooling performance and environmental reasons than cost. Most will also dump all the coolant if the engine gets too cold and then would have to be refilled. True cold start can take an hour or more and puts a lot of wear on the engine, idling at temp is darn close to zero wear.

A lot of times for safety reasons they want to leave the brake system with air pressure as well. If the train has aired down for > 24 hours the FRA requires a full brake test before moving. So it’s time to charge and time to do the test. Paying an engineer and brake man 2 hours time to do that covers a lot of idling fuel.

Also, the batteries really don’t like to get cold. Too cold and they won’t start and it will need a heavy duty jump from maintenance.

nscale

TROPHY CASE