arkon

Just got to unload somewhere so you guys are going to cop it before my head explodes with frustration.

I am trying to build some prototype products ready for production sometime next year. I've done all the work, all the design now I need to buy the bits, and this is where Australia strikes again! I need a whole bunch of electronic parts and by lucky chance Australia has a Farnell and RS so I should be able to get all I need....Well no, although they are called the same name they only have about 150k lines compared to the UK's 500k lines. So just on the laws of average there is more chance they won't stock what I need than that they will.

Well they don't. They are the ONLY Oz distributors for most of the parts I need and they don't carry those lines! Ok I say I'll buy them from the UK version of the companies.....THEY WONT SHIP ABROAD!!!!

Oh and the parts they do have are about 1.5 times dearer pound for dollar than back home. Trying to get a tubular flat head countersunk aluminium rivet is like trying to find a gold plated alpaca poo.

WTF do I do? I can't really have a manufacturing company here when I can't seem to get any of the bits. Just to add insult to injury both the above mentioned multi nationals won't send me a catalogue. Say they will then weeks later still nothing...Phone up to chase and told to just wait for the postman.....

Then there is another major part I need that costs about $230 each and I need thousands of them a year. In the uk when I needed one it came the next day with a man attached to it to make sure I knew how to use it and to help me integrate it into my project. Here I've been waiting for that exact same part from the Australian distributor for TWO MONTHS now and I still haven't got it!!!!!!!!!

They say it's the land of opportunity, I'm not so sure anymore, the only opportunity I see here is for a good psychologist to calm me down.....

Rant over, no need for anyone to reply. Australia sucks more and more each day!

Nu-Shooz

No replies needed!!! but i just want to say i know how you feel Arkon. Nothing is easy over here is it?

MartinLuther

The postal strikes in the UK seem to be screwing up my deliveries from the UK as well

arkon

This little escapade is far worse than I've made it sound in the post above. I needed a PCB made so I designed it but didn't know how to get the fabricators to drill 2 holes that were not plated (too close to some other pins and only mounting holes) I phoned the company and got the receptionist who point blank refused to put me through to someone who would know the answer, in fact she told me to just 'use the software and read the help files' 3 calls later and still none the wiser she gave up trying to point me at help files and just told me to go elsewhere if I were not happy with their service! I was nice as pie on every call, not unhappy with the service just needed to have a technical answer to a problem....I gave up in the end not least because the boards were going to cost $51 a board when I can get them done in the states for $9 and Taiwan for $4

The country just does not deserve to have any industy if this is typical of how it's done here. Rude, complacent, over priced and no choice just about sums it all up.

I'm currently thinking my only option is to buy the bits in the UK and get them sent to a UK address and then posted out here, adding time and more expense.

Did I mention a total disregard of replying to any emails you send people or NEVER returning a call. I'm the customer FFS, going to spend money with them, all they need to do is give me catalogues, price lists and answer the phone and bobs your aunty, seems like this is just too much like hard work for nearly ALL that I have dealt with out here on this project so far.

dave99

I know how you feel, I often try to get hold of things that would have been easy in the UK but here result in hours or days of searching with no luck.

It worries me..

arkon

I've just spent a fruitless day trying to source PC motherboard screws!

on a mission

arkon,

we got PCB's made in China and imported them, far easier and cheaper.

Also there is another electronic store in Brisbane I ust to got to JAYCAR.

Its not easy but there are suppliers around, just need to look a bit harder and promise them you will buy milllions of parts, they listen then,

Mid Lifer

She'll be right mate

hoofie2002

I know what you mean. My hobby is model engineering and I've got two projects on the go at the monment ; a 3.5" Rob Roy loco and a gas-turbine. The stuff I need [simple things like some 3mm steel sheet] is impossible to obtain in the west easily. There is only one real place that sells home workshop tooling - they are good but not cheap and don't open on Saturdays. So basically everything [including small lengths of steel and brass] has to come from the East. And the prices are extortionate [25 dollars for a small tool that costs 3 quid in the UK].

As for the electronics side, I can sympathise [albeit at a simpler level]. Dick Smith advertise components but they never have them in stock [they advertise Kits but never have any of them]. What you are asking for is not rocket science but with attitudes you're seeing are very common.

arkon

Thanks, I've tried Jaycar. The standard problem I come up against here is I need a specific part say a molex connector, so contact Molex to get the names of distributors here, then discover the whole country might be covered by just one distributor and if that one doesn't carry the line I'm stuffed. I can get them from for example avnet which is sort off the distributors distributor but the quantities I need to buy from them is just way too big. I need sort of an in between amount. Not thousands but not 10's either. There is no middle ground here, it's all or nothing.

I find it all so frustrating. All day today trying to souce an M3 screw of the type that is used inside a PC to hold a motherboard to the case. Just none here at all. Another thing I have to get from the states.

Back off under my bridge now, too frustrated today to do anything more than rant.

arkon

Tell me about it. I used to like collecting replica guns, air soft that fire plastic pellets to play with indoors. All illegal here! so another hobby bit the dust.

Wol

I sympathise in spades. *Nothing* seems to work here, or get done to a reasonable standard. The most frustrating things are the complete and utter lack of any desire to improve coupled with the attitude that anything Australian is, by definition, better than something "forrin".

Occasionally someone *does* do a good job, on time and to quote - and you have to sit down in a dark room for an hour or two just to recover your equilibrium!

And I speak as an ordinary Joe - what it must be like trying to do business Gawd knows.

arkon

In a word.....FRUSTRATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wol

Just don't take it out on the alpacas!

arkon

Well they are actually quite calming. After a frustrating session on the phone trying to buy a rivet, I can go outside and sit with the pacas.

The ironic thing is, when I did this exact same task in the UK, I had suppliers falling over themselves to supply me. We even had yearly tender wars to get the bits cheaper. Here there is no choice, no selection, and so no hope of getting price reductions. Here they would much rather lose a sale of 10's of thousands of dollars than accomodate your specific need. I once made the mistake of asking for a suppler to provide me with a 'Can Ban' system....Basically they hold the stock and feed my line just in time. I then only actually pay as the componets are used so reducing my stock levels to zero. Try to spot the flaw in doing that here in Australia, I'll give you a clue...'Just in time'....