Embedded Lab

I have been living in Southern Virginia for past 3 years and I haven’t seen any retail store to shop for electronics components that are needed for my projects, except the Radioshack stores. I don’t prefer to go to Radioshack as the prices are much higher than my budget. A few years ago, I discovered an online store named Futurlec. I was surprised with their prices, their stuffs were really cheap and of good quality. I made 4 orders in the first year, and I was very happy with what I got. The only problem was they shipped their items from Thailand and the shipping was slow. I got my stuff usually in 3-4 weeks, which was not bad for me as I was not in rush to complete my projects. Honestly, I was very happy for what I paid. I got my stuff a little bit late but the prices and quality of goods were really good. For standard shipping to US, Canada, UK, EU, and Australia, they charge $4.00 for orders up to $29.00, and there’s no minimum order amount. All of my orders were close to $29.00. My most favorite items at this store include prototyping circuit boards, PIC microcontrollers, solder roll, and connectors. They have a huge collections of digital and analog IC’s, hardware items, passive components, and they do have microcontroller development boards too. Here are few snapshots from their website.

But about an year ago, I found another store which offer the similar (or even cheaper) prices and their shipping cost depends upon the number of items you order. The name of the store is Tayda Electronics and it is also based in Thailand. They don’t have as much collections of items as in the Futurlec store, but the prices for the stuff they have got are really good. I like their service very much. My first 3 orders were delivered within 3 weeks, and surprisingly, I received my last order within a week. When I read the sender’s information on the package, it was mailed from Maryland. Since then, it has become my favorite online store. I have got one complain though: they don’t have PIC microcontrollers in their store, which I need most. They didn’t have minimum order amount but they have recently changed it to $5.00. My favorite items at Tayda Electronics include Switches, LEDs, seven segment displays, resistors, capacitors, crystals, voltage regulator IC’s, transistors, audio amplifier IC’s and IC sockets (see snapshots below).

I requested to add PIC microcontrollers to their stock and they have responded positively. I am hoping to see my favorite microcontrollers on Tayda Electronics website soon.