Mouser BOMs with better parts quality?

I know I'm very late to this thread and this is a rather small point but I have literally never found 1/4w metal film resistors with leads as thick as Tayda's (for cheaper) and I have searched eveeeerrywhere
@Aleph Null and I were discussing that recently and did some measuring. I think the verdict was Mouser won the lead-girth contest but only by around .002”. The Tayda metal films are great, but there is lore that they were flimsy years ago.
 
@Aleph Null and I were discussing that recently and did some measuring. I think the verdict was Mouser won the lead-girth contest but only by around .002”. The Tayda metal films are great, but there is lore that they were flimsy years ago.
Ah, makes sense. There's a few brands on LCSC with *close* thickness for cheaper than Tayda, but typically the available values are extremely limited.
 
Forgive me if I'm a little gruff, guys. I'm here to help, not to complain. I just a see a hole in this DIY PCB thing you got going here and I'm trying to patch it if I can. If it is unnecessary, I'm not seeing it yet.

I'm coming here from the world of tube amps. I don't worry so much about the size and shape of parts with that stuff. But here it looks critical. I ordered a bunch of parts and most of them barely wouldn't fit the boards I bought. IS this not a common issue that would be alleviated with a simple repository of properly sourced BOMs?

This sounds like a you problem.

I don’t think we have an epidemic of ordering the wrong parts in this community.

These new people are insufferable lately…
 
Am I the only that finds it weird that there isn't a "virtual parts kit" kind of thread? Like you buy your board and then just order a parts kit from a vendor or two. Seems simple and very useful. Am I wrong?
Yes. You are wrong.

Useful? Yes. Simple?

I suppose keeping databases of in stock and available parts from retailers for hundreds of circuit boards, many of which use components that are not currently in production, may seem simple.

Like, until you start buying components. Which I can only imagine is what prompted this thread.

Look...if you want that much done for you, then why not just buy kits?

I mean, fucking up orders is part of the fun. Keep those stupid sizes components around for a later build. I've got some real dumb 10uf polypro caps for exactly that reason.

And speaking as the resident forum weirdo: welcome. This is my turf, Jack. Keep it within reason.
 
This sounds like a you problem.

I don’t think we have an epidemic of ordering the wrong parts in this community.

These new people are insufferable lately…
Woah man, you better watch out. Didn't you see his warning? Dude is a mirror! A force mirror no less!
;)

And like I said before, I am just a mirror. Come at me with BS and guess what you'll get back in force?
 
I'll break my promise to jwin now...

FWIW, I have found Panasonic, Nichicon, TDK, Vishay, Kemet, h*ck, even Wima components on Tayda, and almost always for less than Mouser, DigiKey, even though a lot of times there's no QoS pricing on them. Also availability of those name brands depends on where and when Tayda gets them. It's ...difficult to find them, I'll grant, but they've gotten better at highlighting the brand in the search results. Tayda itself should not, in my opinion, be written off based on its worst parts offered, past or present. That said, I find it easier to search than navigating the filtering system of a Mouser/DigiKey/Farnell, which are designed for large-scale operations versus the hobbyist or small-to-medium scale operation.

I recall (and still have a few specimens) from my over-a-decade-ago intro to building that they carried a lot of inferior parts: thin-leaded and out-of-spec components, terrible switches, and brittle enclosures. It was better to buy from Mammoth than Tayda back then... Those days are behind them. Do they still have bottom-rung parts? sure. But that herd is getting thinned.

As far as going full-bore on "quality" parts, well, the rabbit hole runs deep, and an all-inclusive consensus on even the definition of absolute quality does not exist, with opinions varying on brand name alone, dielectric in caps, other properties, etc.. Additionally, opinions, declarations of when and where the "quality" parts should be placed within a circuit differs from builder to builder. That's not an absolute, that's an observation on my part.

Each of those members will have success, whether personal, for-friends, or small to medium scale sales operations.

tl;dr there is no central database created by the forum, because there is no consensus, and likely never will be. We're individuals, and that's not a bad thing.
 
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First, an anecdote. Then, a little "Devil's Advocate" for the opinions of @tablebeast:

Anecdote: There does seem to be a trend over the last 5 years or so of new members to ANY forum "comin' in hot". I can only speak for myself but when I started in DIY around 2008 or so, modifying Valve Junior's, I had missed both the initial DIY pedal era AND the VJr era by about 5 years and 2 years, respectively.

One thing we didn't seem to do back then was come into a known forum and start telling people what's what. In those days, no one told you shit. Despite the community, as we seem to know it now, having gained a reputation for being inclusive and free with knowledge, I think you can point to the creation of freestompboxes.org as a sort of turning point in the more outgoing, more free exchange of information.

Up to that point, if you came in like a whirlwind telling people they were wrong or telling them what they needed to do correctly, you were iced out. It was already difficult getting answers to things if you didn't know what you were looking at/working on, but give any of those old guard guys shit? You were persona non grata.

So what you'll find here is that we are in a totally different era and it's a testament to this community, but also DIY communities as a whole in 2025, that there IS a huge success rate in the absence of DIFM (Do It For Me) BOM's, of detailed build docs, etc. It's kind of like a big team in that sense, as the success of the community hinges on the summation of individual successes.

What we do do (yes, I said doo doo) though, especially when a new person comes in like an asteroid hellbent on destroying the Earth, is joke and clown on that person.

There is good reason for that as well: For instance, I am 40 years old. I grew up in that magical era just slightly before broadband internet. We still did quite a bit of talking to real people back then on a regular basis and one thing young boys did especially was mercilessly bust each other's balls.

Humor, in either it's gallows or male to male ball busting variety, is an extremely effective tool for regulating people's behavior within a friend group. A guy starts getting out of line? You bust his balls and joke about his behavior until he sees the ridiculousness of it.

That's what you saw here and what you'll see all over this forum when we see someone who needs to be checked in a friendly way.

Devil's Advocate: We can all remember those darker times in DIY where, even in light of the intense excitement we felt at the overall proposition, we felt buried alive by:

1.) What we didn't know
2.) What we needed
3.) Where to get what we needed

I think I handled that proposition a little differently in 2008 than many people do in a similar situation in 2025. Honestly, it makes sense that people expect everything to be already done for them, especially in an era where there is so much information that almost nothing, save for the last kernels of understanding about how the universe works, seem to be unsolved, not understood, without a YouTube tutorial, etc.

TLDR?

This is a great community and infinitely more helpful than it was back in the day.

We are going to bust your chops when you bust ours because we think you are being ridiculous.

As someone pointed out earlier, the very immense pool of parts, constant turnover and obsolescence and user preference makes BOMs not as universal a thing as you might think.
 
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