How anal to be about components?

[peccary]

I'm pretty new to this, with only a couple of vero builds under my belt. I started measuring everything a month or so ago after reading that people seem to have issues with their Tayda orders, and most of my parts (other than switches and jacks) have come from there. Most of those threads complaining about bad/out of spec. parts seem to be fairly old. In the time I have been measuring (only a month or so) I have found the Tayda Royal Ohm resistors to be extremely reliable and the no-name electro caps I got from ebay regularly come in well under their marked values. The Panasonics measure much better. The giant grab bag of greenies I got from ebay are pretty darn close to spec, though, so who knows. DIodes from Tayda have all tested well, too.

I feel that, especially with me learning along the way, measuring is a good thing. It will help me understand things better and be able to know for myself which parts to trust and which to not trust. It might take a little bit longer, but I have a little workflow I'm developing, which is helping. I also attached my DMM to the wall in front of me so I can just grab the leads, test, and the readout is right in front of me. Once I get more experience I expect I'll use it less, but till then I think it's good practice for a neophyte such as myself.

My very first ever build was a Woolly Mammoth clone on Vero where I didn't test a single thing, had no idea what I was doing, and built it all in one day because I was so impatient to get it going. The guts were (and still are) a disgusting mess of a rats nest. But that thing fired up and worked perfectly the first time, and has survived in my bag since about 2012 (I took a long tine off from that first build before getting started again). So who knows.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

I think you're doing the right thing testing parts.
Regarding negative comments about Tayda, I'll remind you of something you already know: satisfied customers are much less likely to leave a positive review than disgruntled customers are to complain and leave negative reviews. It's just human nature. I have purchased a TON of stuff from Tayda and it's all been great except for two things: 1) they sold me "1N34A" diodes that were clearly Schottky. 2) some of their setscrew knobs do not contain threaded inserts. Everything else: transistors, resistors, caps, ICs, knobs, enclosures, Vero boards, yadda yadda yadda are all good and I continue to buy from them.

 

[chongmagic]

I have purchased a crap ton from Tayda and have really never had any issues. That being said for more hard to obtain components I go with Small Bear and Pedalhacker.

 

[Barry]

I'm not a fan of Tayda's knobs or their Lumberg DC jack knock off's other than those no issues

 

[chongmagic]

I'm not a fan of Tayda's knobs or their Lumberg DC jack knock off's other than those no issues

I get my knobs and jacks mainly from Love My Switches or Small Bear, they are much better quality than Tayda.

 

[Barry]

I get my knobs and jacks mainly from Love My Switches or Small Bear, they are much better quality than Tayda.

ditto

 

[Barry]

BYOC has decent knobs and pricing too

 

[mdc]

I have yet to receive anything mislabeled or mis-shipped from Tayda; in the cases where I thought I'd been giving something incorrect, I went back and checked my order and shockingly enough discovered that I'd just ordered the wrong thing. Hello, momentary on-off-on mini toggles.

The only bad luck I've had with tayda parts is with 3pdts and switches being DOA or failing prematurely after install. It's frustrating but I can hardly blame tayda for the shoddy construction of a mechanical part that I specifically ordered because it was the [homer voice] second to least expensive option.