by Doug Coulter » Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:52 am
Everyone is cheaper than digikey for connectors. I use Marlin P Jones (when they have stock), or even JDR microdevices. Sometimes a $5+ or higher connector at digikey is $.35 at those places.
I can't tell a quality difference!
Seems digi's pricing is set by AMP and other overpriced outfits as though the common ones were as hard to make as mil spec circular space-qualified fancy stuff (the ones that need that $200 special tool to use on top of it). It seems the connector business is pretty widely priced from place to place and time to time, and they have no compunction about charging what the market will bear from people who don't know how to fish around a little.
I have been known to replace weird connectors in commercial designs so as not to have to buy the fancy mates for them -- a lot of work once...but often worth it if you're going to be using the thing a lot with potentially different things from time to time. If I can fit a (usually a little larger) mainstream-common connector into the mechanicals, I'll do it every time, or make one adapter so after that I can use standard cheap cables from the local (Chinese-wholesale, good prices and good people) computer store after that. Even if the cheap cables have a higher failure rate, well, the ratio of price is such that they are still a bargain, even including time to troubleshoot and replace now and then.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.