Last Radio Shack in CT is now closed. Where to?

[DadsGlasses]

Any recommendations for online vendors of electronic components? The last Radio Shack in my state has shut its doors.

[SignGuy81]

I get just about everything from ebay. If I do need something not on ebay I use Jameco

[+Allan]

Any recommendations for online vendors of electronic components? The last Radio Shack in my state has shut its doors.

Don't know what part of the state your in but there used to be (as in they may still be in business) an electronics place in Waterbury. They actually had a lot of stuff and had a lot of knowledge about electronics. I have to see if I can remember the name. Other than that I can't think of any place that had what LITTLE Radio Shack had.

 

Allan

[towmater]

No Fry's out there?

[+Allan]

No Fry's out there?

No.

 

Allan

[+Ksarul]

You can also try Unicorn Electronics in Aliquippa PA. They have a lot of useful retro components and their prices are OK too.

[+DrVenkman]

For the last few years, RatShacks around here had hardly anything except crappy cell phones and accessories, plus some vastly overpriced adapters (1/4" to 1/8" audio plugs, etc) and power bricks for the cellphones they sold. Ugh. Frankly, it's easier, cheaper and faster to get something from Amazon Prime than it is to try to spend hours tracking down obscure stuff locally. And if Amazon is too pricey, eBay has you covered. Sure it'll take 3 weeks coming from China, but man a couple thousand resistors or ceramic caps are cheap and will last the average hobbyist years. I just bought a 40 piece kit of chromed RCA female jacks for A/V mods for $4.39 shipped - yeah, it took 10 days to get here from overseas but my systems are all well over 30 years old. They're not going anywhere fast.

 

I don't know if this kind of globalism is really good long-term economics, but it's the world we live in so that's what hobbyists apparently have to do.

[DadsGlasses]

I understand. The Radio Shacks near me were 95% stuff that I wasn't interested in. It was nice to be able to go in and grab something small when needed.

 

Looks like Amazon Prime will be the answer.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Well, I too am in the same boat...sorta.

 

All RS closed down in the OK and KS state areas as of this past Friday I believe or maybe the Friday before. Anyway, I do have a pretty decent electronics hobby store here in my home town. Problem is, they are only open M - F from 9am to 5:30pm and are on the other side of town from where I work. As a result, the ONLY times I can give them a visit is when I out running a service call in the area and have a chance to stop in, or when I happen to have the day off from work during the week to visit them.

 

Other than that, I've gotten a few things off ebay from the wonderful cheap China dealers, and I have also ordered stuff from Mouser, and DigiKey as needed as well.

[+fdr4prez]

Micro Center if it is close enough to you.

 

They have a small DIY area.

[icemanxp300]

Radio Shack rarely had what I wanted anyhow and the few times they had what I wanted they wanted $5 for something I get 50 of from china. The only thing I was still buying there was solder and it was just rebranded kester. I have since purchased a 1lb roll off ebay cheaper and shipped to my door.

 

The days of these stores are over, at least for now. Sit in your chair and click buy and save time and money doing so.

[the_crayon_king]

Any recommendations for online vendors of electronic components? The last Radio Shack in my state has shut its doors.

 

Console5 (capacitor packs for consoles),

Digikey/Mouser for about anything.

Ebay (specialty replacement parts like old ICs),

Alibaba (its a pain to go through the process of ordering but you can actually custom order weird parts; they like bulk orders)

Amazon for tools.

[TheTIGuy]

Sadly, the thing RadioShack was killed by is what we may have to use, ...AMAZON! (Duh-duh-DUH!)

[Osgeld]

I tend to lean to mouser cause they take paypal now

 

but yea

 

mouser

digikey

jameco

ebay

 

or any ma-pa shop that wont gut your wallet in shipping cost (I forget what site I was looking on, needed a TIA for a 2600, ohh great price, too bad first class postage was 13 bucks!)

[WERY]

It's sad to hear how all these stores close down, one by one. There was a store in the city I live in, that sold lots of different components for this purpose. I found it practical to visit them, for purhases of soldering material and components. First they ceased to take cash, second they closed the shop. I can still order from them online but is is easier sometimes, to buy from a physical store...

[Bruce Tomlin]

Sadly, the thing RadioShack was killed by is what we may have to use, ...AMAZON! (Duh-duh-DUH!)

Gotta chime in here, I can't put the blame on Amazon.

 

First to blame would be themselves, management was apparently obsessed with selling cellphone contracts over everything else. I recently heard a story from someone who worked in a store that did like $10K worth of business over a holiday weekend, and all upper management cared about was how many cell contracts they sold.

 

Second would be... Wal-Mart! A few months ago I took a moment to see what was in their electronics aisles these days, and they had all of the the most important "gotta have it now" kind of generic stuff like cables, SD cards, and flash drives. They also have two or three brands of prepaid cell phones and refill cards. Meanwhile, the quantity of $35 HDMI cables in the Radio Shack closeouts was astonishing. Someone in RS apparently had no clue that those had become commodity parts.

 

They were supposedly going to leave one RS here in San Antonio open (and none in Austin). The employees had been implied to that the store would stay open, and the discounts were even being reduced after the other stores closed. Then two months later I go by and it's gone.

 

 

As for Fry's, they're a good place if you're lucky enough to be near one. I'm still unhappy that back when Fry's was moving into Texas, they never got around to opening a store in San Antonio. Just as they were about to, they hit financial problems (to the point where manufacturers wouldn't ship them product on credit), so I understand that it's a near miracle that they're still around at all. But now that I've moved back from Austin, that's one place I can't go unless I'm already going to Austin. Even then they're on the far opposite side of town, and it's a pain in the ass to cross Austin at certain times of the day.

 

I've found that Amazon can also be a good place for slow-boat China stuff. While I did get a bag of 20 "bluepill" microcontroller boards directly through Ali for about $2 each, most of the other stuff I got through Amazon, including a bag of 20 Wii Classic Controller extension cables so that I could cut them up to use Wii plug-in controllers on microcontrollers. I usually start a shopping cart, then add stuff over a week or so, then select the slowest free shipping.

 

More conventional parts I get from Mouser because they're in Dallas, so they can be a day faster via USPS delivery. When I want same-day stuff, I go to Altex here a few miles away, they stock most of what isn't discrete components or microcontroller boards. They have a good selection of tools, including most of the iFixit branded tools.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Bruce Tomlin