We think components from hobbyist sites from the likes of Seeed Studio, SparkFun, and AdaFruit are great. They have some really unique and cool products  that you can't always buy from normal distributor channels in the United States. However, we generally recommended that customers stick to using these types of parts for only hobbyist projects since they aren’t suited for a professional manufacturing environment.

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Packaging

These types of parts are a packaging nightmare for manufacturers. They are typically supplied to companies like Adafruit on large reels, which they then cut up into strips, put into small zip lock bags, and then sell to Digikey and other distributors for reselling to consumers. Dealing with multiple cut strips is outside of our normal material handling processing and does not work well with our automated flow.

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Moisture sensitivity

‍Because these parts are repackaged that means that they may have been to exposed to the environment, making them unsuitable for a manufacturer’s reflow oven. This means we have to bake these parts before placing them onto the PCBs, which will cause delays to your order. Usually this isn’t a concern for hobbyists as they will likely hand solder these parts anyway.

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Cheap materials

‍From our experience, the plastic on these parts, especially connectors, are very poor quality and have a tendency to melt when going through the reflow oven and selective soldering machines. This means that we have to hand solder them, again adding time and cost to orders.

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Not always registered with the ECIA

In general, these types of parts are not always registered with the ECIA. The ECIA (Electronic Components Industry Association) helps to organize authorized distribution of electronic components. Buying parts from distributors that are registered with the ECIA ensures that they have been managed and stored following the quality standards set by the manufacturer, the the distributor will handle any warranty concerns, thus you will not be receiving counterfeit products, amongst other benefits.

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For the above reasons, when customers must use this category of parts, and are placing orders of any kind of large volume, we insist they buy them direct and consign them. Want to use these types of parts in your order? Make sure to contact us first so we can have a conversation about it.

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