Tayda Electronics review

A while back I was looking for a cheap supplier of small electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, stripboards, pin headers (for my Raspberry which I hope I'll some day get), diodes, voltage regulators, leds, IC sockets and smaller ICs. I'm well aware large corporations such as Mouser and Farnell sell all of these items at really low prices and with a colossal catalogue. Though, where I come from, those companies are a total rip-off for hobbyists due to shipping costs and a minimum order value of €50.00.

Ebay sellers are quite vast, though ebay is not an ideal website to buy lots of low-value items. Then there's Futurlec which has an excellent selection at reasonable prices.. For this thread I'd like to write a little review on a company called Tayda Electronics (http://www.taydaelectronics.com/).

The best way to review is to show what I bought a while back:



All which is shown in this picture (except for the red circuit board in the middle) was bought for $18 including shipping. Insane isn't it? These guys are not your average eBayer. Tayda packages each type of component in an individual seal-bag and labels it according to what's in and how much is in. I'd say about half of their website consists of items cheaper than 10 cents ($). Buying resistors, diodes and capacitors at 1 ct each feels good man.

Anyway; onto a more serious review. Tayda electronics doesn't have a lot of cool stuff in stock you'd expect to see at the larger corporations. They have what you'd expect your local electronics store to have: jacks, opamps, 555, cmos 4000s, ADCs, RTCs, trimpots, standard (mos)fets, volt reg (positive and negatives), pwm, timers, motor drivers, pin headers, atmega, PIC, SMD, some circuit boards etcetera. What I miss are many semi-higher quality ICs like Analog Devices opamps, 16 bit ADCs, they don't have any DACs at all, variable capacitors none, proper lightsensors none, their resistor collection is missing a couple values (this can be really frustrating), etcetera. In my last order I received one wrong component, though I didn't really mind because I ordered like 400 components. I won't bother asking for a refund on 20 cents lol. Note that Tayda has a minimum order of $5 and about 2~3$ shipping costs. I have not tried ordering one of their aluminium enclosures; though it might increase shipping costs significantly. Please check on your local import tax laws!! I believe for the EU you pay no tax up until a value of €23. I normally don't buy for more than €20 to avoid tax. For other countries, such as Australia, this ceiling is way higher.

What I especially like about Tayda electronics is how they deal with catalogue suggestions. A while back I requested they stock up on opa2134 (a higher-end opamp) and 3.5mm stereo jacks (they only had 1/4th inch). About a week later, they had both in stock at extremely competitive prices. I'll be reasonable and say they probably won't accept requests for extremely rare ICs or components that have a low demand, but I get the impression they accept lots of requests all the time.

Conclusion

Cheap though limited-selection of quality electronic parts perfect for any hobbyist. Their (small) collection of SMD components suggest (semi)-professionals could also be interested. Very well packaged in individual labeled seal-bags to protect them and make it easy to have a tidily sorted out hobby box. Components with thin leads (ICs and DIP sockets) were stuck into polystyrene foam for further protection. Delivery was about 2 weeks for me (Western Europe, they send from Taipei Taiwan). When they don't sell something, don't hesitate to contact them.

As for Raspberry-pi related stuff: the double-row pin-headers they sell are about 30 cents and mine were really high quality; much better than I had expected.

Take a look at their website and you'll be surprised how much one dollar can suddenly get you!

Thanks - I'd heard about Tayda, but never seen a review from someone with experience buying from them.

I know a lot of people in the homebrew audio fx community who use and recommend them.

gritz said:

I know a lot of people in the homebrew audio fx community who use and recommend them.

This I can understand! Their metal enclosures, stomp pedals, 1/4th inch jacks and various ICs seem perfect for guitar effects, microphone amplifiers, distortion effects, the PIC stuff is cool for DIY midi devices, etcetera.. My imagination isn"t big enough to create long lists of projects. With their DIP atmega you could even create your own arduino-compatible device for like 10 dollar

edit: excuse me for the post, you can't make an arduino with tayda's catalogue because they have no usb-to-uart chip necessary for interfacing with the atmel/atmega.

Just placed an order with Tayda. How long did it take for your order to arrive?

DeliciousRaspberryCake said:

edit: excuse me for the post, you can't make an arduino with tayda's catalogue because they have no usb-to-uart chip necessary for interfacing with the atmel/atmega.

You could request one...

platinum95 said:

Just placed an order with Tayda. How long did it take for your order to arrive?

For future users reading this; Tayda Electronics ships from Taipei, Taiwan (last time I ordered something). Shipping is about 2 weeks to Western Europe standard shipping. If you're okay with paying more, they also have a 1-3 days DHL shipping, you pay extra for this. DHL is not advised unless it's a really big order or a components you need quickly. I find 2 weeks acceptable; it is faster than shipping from China itself which can take up to 3-4 weeks. But hey, it's cheap, so I'll wait!

Been doing some shopping around, and it seems that Tayda are significantly cheaper than, for example, RS for small quantities of certain items.

Take, for example, the CD4093 quad schmitt trigger NAND gate IC.  I find myself in need of a few of these (in DIP form).

RS - 12.10€ before tax for a minimum order of 25.  Okay, I can find a use for 25, probably.

Tayda - 3.61€ for 25 (well, $4.75, actually, but that's roughly what it comes to).

Is that a one-off?  Hrm. TL074 op amps.  Need some of those too.

RS - 0.34€ each.  Tayda - 0.16€ each.

Dual 50K linear pots?

RS - 4.02€ each.  Tayda - 0.61€ each.

And so on.  I'm sold.

@tufty

Are the manufacturers of the above mentioned chips the same?

Are the cheaper ones also from well known, established manufacturers?

As an example, we normally use opto-couplers from LITEON but couldn't

resist buying the last batch from a supposed compatible second source.

Well, when the optos arrived, they had a manufacturers marking I have never seen and the performance was nothing like the originals.

For starters they needed roughly 35% more drive and the bandwidth was appalling.

Luckily they were bought down the road (and we used them on IC sockets to make the units easier to carry out field repairs on) so we could take them back.

For an amateur "on-the-cheap" it's a bit silly going for "quality". Of course cheap Chinese chips won't be as good as the real thing, but is it relevant for most projects? I pay 15 cents for my AND ports and it's okay they don't perform well under extreme conditions or extremely high frequencies. the cheap 20 cent ne5532 opamps I have aren't so bad for what I do with them (like driving leds or doubling voltage). When I accidentally destroy one, it's not such a big deal.

I remember I once paid €2 for a tl072 bought from a local electronics shop. I thought it was a great deal, until I looked online and saw such things are being sold for 19 cents. Same goes for resistors, diodes, transistors, capacitors and LEDs. Some shops dare to ask >25 cents per led, or a euro for a pack of 25 resistors. The simple electronic components are really cheap online. They can cost less than 2 cent each.

Anyway, what I'd like to say is that I don't mind the components I buy aren't industrial-quality or medical-grade. I really don't care at all, actually. If I someday develop a real electronic product, I'll be sure to go with the "quality stuff"

Hi DeliciousRaspberryCake

Obviously price is always an issue, but one should exercise caution with buying "cheaper" components.

Like you say, they don"t always perform as they should so not only is this a problem for professionals but also for the hobbyist/student.

There can be nothing more irritating and off-putting for a beginner trying to fault find a circuit he or she has just built and it does not work like it should, not through any fault of theirs but due to inferior components.

I"m not saying that one should buy from RS (in fact I"m not a fan) or not buy from any specific supplier but what is important, is buying the "real McCoy".

The savings on the "alternatives" are simply not worth it when something goes wrong.

As an example, here are some other prices:

NE5532 (Texas Instruments) from mouser.com $0.62

NE5532 (Texas Instruments) from Arrow $0.34

NE5532( Unknown) from Jameco $0.49

NE5532 (also TI) from Digikey $0.56

NE5532 (also TI) from Farnell £0.68

All of the above are for 1 piece and DIP8 package.

If you can do SMD SOIC8 package then in many cases they are even cheaper.

Dave_G_2 said:

As an example, here are some other prices:

NE5532 (Texas Instruments) from mouser.com $0.62

NE5532 (Texas Instruments) from Arrow $0.34

NE5532( Unknown) from Jameco $0.49

NE5532 (also TI) from Digikey $0.56

NE5532 (also TI) from Farnell £0.68

All of the above are for 1 piece and DIP8 package.

If you can do SMD SOIC8 package then in many cases they are even cheaper.

Please realize that in many parts of the world; Mouser, Arrow, Jameco, Digikey and Farnell do not sell to consumers. The USA and UK are in a very positive situation where these electronic-components companies provide products to consumers at decent prices and decent shipping (&handling) costs. In my case, some of these companies (including digikey and farnell) do supply consumers, but have upwards of $25 shipping costs (starting costs) and more often than not a minimum order of €50.

The price of a product is not only determined by the unit price, but also the minimum order, shipping, handling and taxation. You'll see that if I order a single NE5532 from farnell, it'll probably cost me hundreds if not thousands of times the amount it would cost me to buy the cheap rip-offs from a random Chinese dealer like tayda or futurlec. I fully agree with you chances are high the quality will not be 100% identical to professional dealers (though this can be refuted; I've seen the guy from EEVblog talking about how Farnell has provided him stuff in fake Chinese rip-off "anti-static" bags). If you put tayda/futurlec components through a set of industry-standard tests, you'll likely see they all don't 100% comply. Chances are the chips are all from "bad" batches. But who knows? Until someone actually tests this, it's unfair to say their components are cheap but inferior.

The world of electronic components is very unfairly distributed, to say the least. I'd rather continue buying from Asian dealers instead of having to set up a fake company just to be able to buy from professionals.

I have used Tayda Electronics as my "first choice supplier" for two years now.
I completely agree with the recommendation of the original poster, which is backed by my own experiences.
Regarding product "Quality", it's always hard to make better than a generalized comment because mostly a non-professional user rarely gets around to comparative testing.
I offer three comments:
1) Recently a one-off builder became very disappointed with the proportion of out of spec super bright LEDs he received at a very low price from a no-name on-line source. He replaced with a batch from Tayda & was completely satisfied.
2) When considering buying from Tayda, their website easily allows the manufacturer to be identified, so that further checks can be made. I happened to notice just before this posting, that several IC's were "Fairchild" - sounds fine to me!
3) If you have a part which might, or is known to be critical, (designers often so advise), - "quality critical", just ensure you order that part from a supplier you trust, it's just not sensible to do otherwise.

A little follow-up post. A while back I placed another 15$ order with tayda and it turned out to be quite a pile:



I was very pleased I was able to purchase a huge PNP power transistor (MJE2955) and a tda2030 very cheaply (both less than 40ct each). Such power-transistors are often used in linear power supplies for guiding high currents past linear power regulators to prevent going beyond the regulator's specifications. The TDA2030 is a budget mono amplifier that you often find in 2.1 speakersets due to their extreme versatility and relatively good quality-to-price ratio. In any case, tda2030 is a fun chip to learn how amplifiers work and what goes into designing the power supply for an amplifier (see also the very extensive datasheet). I can also highly recommend Tayda's 555s as being very cheap (13 cent lol). Tayda doesn't have many ICs, though there are some EEPROMs (like 93C46) for playing around with. At these prices I can't really go wrong. They're endless fun for arduino and I guess also for raspberry pi (though less relevant due to sd card).