Gareth,

Well, don't move to the US, as things here are much worse. We have
"Radio Shack" as the last retailer of electronics parts, and they sell
very few of those recently..

I was in the UK in 2012, and stopped at the Maplin store in central
Cambridge. The had actual inventory, and the sales staff was pretty
good. I wish we had something close to that in the New York
Metropolitan area where I live. In this area, there is no longer the
choice of running down to a store to buy a part to complete a rush job,
everything must be mail ordered.

Radio Shack used to use the tag line "You've got Questions, We've got
Answers". Someone on this news group changed that to "You've got
questions, We've got high school drop outs in neck ties", which was
unfortunately often close to the truth. Also, Radio Shack no longer
offers a catalog.

Regards,
Tim
Bristol Electronics


On 4/30/2014 1:21 PM, Gareth Magennis wrote:

In the UK we have a chain of shops called Maplin, which sells electronic
goods and components.
I detest having to go there, because it is full of expensive crap, and
worse, the staff have no clue what they are talking about yet pretend
they do.

Here's todays example, which came about because I had forgotten my
glasses and couldn't read the catalogue to find the correct part numbers:


Hi, can I have 2 5mm white LED's, and 2 standard 5mm green LED's please.

What voltage are you running them from?

Er, I don't care about that, I just need 2 white LEDs and 2 green ones.

Well, we have these high intensity white ones, they run on 4.2 volts.
If you run them higher than that they could pop.

Er, I'll have 2 of those please.

Oh, we seem to be out of stock of those. We have some superbright ones,
they run on 3.6 volts, which is lower. You might have to watch your
voltage.

Er, OK, I'll have 2 of those please.

We have these green ones, and they run at, oh, 2.2 volts, that's much
lower.

Er, OK, I'll have 2 of those as well.

Would you like some resistors with those?

Er, no thanks, just the LED's.


I should have said yes, and found out how he was going to try and
calculate the resistor values required.



Those 4 LED's cost me £4.60.


That's why I detest Maplin.



Gareth.