Free "Shipping"

An interesting way to keep you ordering, it's like crack.   You have to order within 90 days to keep getting the free shipping for the next order.

An interesting option. With a $25 order every 90 days, one could accumulate a nice parts supply over a period of time. Jameco has some interesting stuff. Some seem reasonably priced, even more so with free shipping. I have not compared prices to my favorite source, Digi-Key. I have ordered a few things from Jameco in the past and got very good service.

Jameco and Digikey or Mouser are really two different kinds of places.  Digikey and Mouser really cater more to industry and stock a huge assortment of pretty much every part imaginable.  Jameco is more of a hobbyist kind of place that has a nice selection, but nothing like Digikey or Mouser.

As GRJ says, Jameco is more for hobbyists.  The "problem" with DigiKey and Mouser for the typical OGR reader is you are overwhelmed with choices...hundreds or thousands of choices for a resistor, or capacitor, or diode, or LED.  You almost need to be an engineer to make the selection.  OTOH Jameco will have only a few choices for the same resistor, capacitor, diode, or LED type.

I've been buying stuff from Jameco (and DigiKey and Mouser) for ~40 years.   As I think about it, what I end up getting from Jameco are more the non-electronic components such as motors, connectors, wire for which I think they have better prices than DigiKey and Mouser for hobby-grade items.

The "free" shipping is more like a frequent-buyer program since it expires after 90 days.  I don't think I've every purchased stuff from Jameco that often...whereas for working with circuits I've bought from DigiKey several times per week and when scrambling to get a project done sometimes more than once per day.  If DigiKey offered a "free" shipping program with a 90 day window, I'd be all over that!

Yep, I buy the electronic bits from Digikey or Mouser, resistors, caps, IC's, etc.  When I need other stuff like speakers, tools, etc., I typically look elsewhere.  I did buy some Microchip development stuff from Digikey, they had it in stock with good prices.

I've been tending to buy parts lately through the auction site from various Chinese vendors, and works out well if you're not in a hurry. For the parts I need right now there is a local electronics store I tend to check first.  Back in the day, before this new fangled internet, this store was about the only place to buy parts.  They carried Jameco's Jim-Pak's and so the yellow and blue package was what I grew up with.  There were many orders over the years, and everything always came exactly as it was supposed to.  I think my first PC computer was bought through Jameco's catalogue.  

Another good... or at least fun, source for interesting parts is All Electronics.  They currently carry all your basic parts as well, but started out in the electronics surplus business, and offer a lot of interesting parts on closeout.  

Of late I tend to like Digi-Key's website the best for finding parts, so I use them when searching for something, especially to post for folks on-line as it also seems to be the standard.  

I think for your average hobbyist in electronics an order every 90 days is perfectly plausible, and may be just the thing to get you comming back, as opposed to using a different supplier.  may have to go have a browse and see if there is anything I actually want to buy.  

JGL

I have orders going to Digikey every week or so, sometimes several times a week.  The bonus with them is the shipping is so reasonable that I don't feel I have to hold off and batch a large order.

For anyone not familiar with Jameco, you can request a FREE catalog by mail.

https://www.jameco.com/webapp/...&catalogId=10001

The last one was about 150 pages and what's nice is they have color pictures of many items placed side-by-side for comparison - sometimes useful when choosing electro-mechanical items like speakers, motors, relays, connectors, etc..  Of course you can get the same info online, but flipping through their catalog is a good way to learn more about electronics because they have a broad cross-section of parts you're likely to use in a train related project.  Surplus houses like All Electronics or Goldmine can be hit or miss on selection.

If memory serves me correctly, Jameco sent me a new catalog with my first order. Just another way to get a catalog, but you get the added bonus of some electronic devices/gizmos/widgets at the same time, sort of a 'twofer' so to speak.