Anyone selling parts from UK?

[solostrike]

I know there's a few builders from the UK here - does anyone know of anybody who is selling part kits? I'm trying to avoid the potentially massive import costs from the US. Thought it might be a good idea to assess options before taking the plunge.

Cheers!

[Luap]

Hey there.. I built mine in the UK, and had most of the bits sent over from the USA. The additional costs of importing all the parts certainly does add up! My x0xb0x ended up costing me a shade over £400 all in ($600'ish for any Merkins reading). But with cheaper knobs, (plastic) panels and less costly rare parts options, I could have done it for £350 or so. Rare parts I got from Gaetano on the forums here. Those parts don't get stung for import duty/taxes (and come from Oz)
Mouser (one of the main parts suppliers) currently have a special offer on. Free fedex shipping, including customs duty/fee's on any order over £50. That will save a bit.
There are one or two x0xb0x sellers in Europe. But it won't cost you less. Perhaps more if anything.. Plus the ones im aware of sell them prebuilt, rather than in kit form.
Oh, and you can also save a little more by getting some parts here in the UK. RS Electronics for example. You can get the Pactec case, LED's, power supply, knobs, standoffs/bolts/washers/screws and resistors from them. Maybe some other parts too, but to find those you'll have to do quite some research!
I built mine in July. I think the exchange rate is a little more in our favour now, so perhaps it will be a shade less expensive compared to what mine cost.

Hope that helps

[charlie_says]

I'll just chip in...

I agree (broadly) with what Luap has said, my one recommendation would be if you buy from mouser (which I think you have to) be very, very careful about which shipping you choose, picking the wrong one (like me) could cost you over the odds... (I'm of course now struggling to remember exactly what that poor decision was.)

But, I can tell you mouser uk support is very helpful so do call them before/during making your order.

And avoid UPS.

[solostrike]

Cheers for the advice guys. Useful to find out about Mouser's free shipping. I've been putting off this project for ages now, going to start amassing the parts next month after BANNED. Should be an interesting experience at least!

[quango]

I've built 3 myself now. I use Mouser for as many of the parts I can, make sure your order is over £50 quid and there is no delivery or import costs. Unlike Digikey which are slow deliverers and you get stung on import as well :/

If I cant get it from mouser then I use rapidonline here, farnell and rs-online. The other problems is getting the boards and faceplates from adafruit, again you get stung bad on import duties. I'm currently investigating getting this stuff from x0xsh0p.de now as that would avoid those costs and be a lot quicker delivery as well.

[solostrike]

Cool, let me know how you get on with the German xox shop. That would def be an interesting opinion if they ship to the UK. In the original thread it looks like they only ship to Germany?

[Luap]

Oh stop procrastinating already and get the bits ordered!

[solostrike]

Haha, well at the beginning of next month I'm planning to order a kit from the German xoxshop. Then probably deluge the forum with requests for help seeing it's my first electronical project. Can't wait, I imagine the feeling of pride is great when you finish it and it (hopefully!) works

[Luap]

It certainly is a good feeling! I was stunned when mine worked first time..
Well, the tuning was way out, but that was a fairly straight forward fix. And the tempo encoder is a bit crappy. But other than that, its bloody great

Im curious to know how it goes from the German x0xshop. I know he uses different PCB's & panels etc..