I've run into the same problem lately while searching for some obscure LEDs. There are literally dozens of "stocking distributor" sites from all over the globe listing hundreds of thousands of part numbers allegedly for sale (via RFQ, mostly offered to businesses only), but when you contact them, there are many parts they don't have and can't get. I can't figure out what the point of doing this is -- I don't believe the pay-per-click angle, because there's little to no advertising on any of the sites, and my spam intake level hasn't increased noticeably since I've contacted several of them.
One particular LED that I'm seeking, I have five examples on hand, and I know where about three dozen of them were used (four sci-fi TV show props from circa 1990, and two very accurate replicas) and who has those items. It's taken me about a year of concerted research effort to identify the maker and part number, and I believe I'm the first person to connect that info to the props in question. Even the makers of the original props only had a "house" part number from a retail reseller to go by. For something that came from a major manufacturer and appeared in at least one of their catalogs as a regular production item, it's oddly scarce in the wild. So far I've only found one of these distributors who claim they actually have them or can get them, but they want $7.50 each for them. I'm looking for 100 pieces and don't want to spend more than about a quarter of that, so I'll probably end up replicating them. That isn't even the worst price I've seen. There are other sellers online and on eBay asking in the 20 and 30 Euro range per piece for LEDs that are far less rare and should be 10 cents or less. Perhaps that's the key to the part number spam... bring in lots of traffic, and overcharge by many times for the few parts they can actually provide, to pay for the overhead of handling all the requests they can't supply, plus long-term storage for some discontinued parts that they HOPE will one day be in demand by someone with deep pockets. I just don't understand how that business model can be sustainable in the long run. On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 2:38:51 PM UTC-8, nixiebunny wrote: > > This 'part number spam' is common for just about any electronic part > number ever > published in the last 50 years. I see it when searching for vintage > semiconductors, milling machine controllers, display tubes, whatever. > > I assume that there's some hidden economy of pay-per-click that causes > this > corner of the Web to exist. It certainly has nothing to do with actually > selling > any of the parts listed on the sites. > > A similar curiosity is that just about any part number made in the last 50 > years > will have some Alibaba page claiming that they have a bunch of that part > available. This is for parts that I know were never made in quantity, > ever, like > the custom IGBT module from the custom Italian motor controllers put on > our > telescope in 2002. Again, money is made, but not from a happy customer. > > > On 2/29/2016 2:36 PM, Jonathan F. wrote: > > Since i'm always looking for nixies for my collection, i often see > websites, > > Nixies in Stock, but declared as "ELECTRON TUBES" along with alot of > strange > > numbers and texts and sometimes in very large quantity like "340pcs".. > > I only can locate these sites when searching for eg. "B-5991" tube... > > If you request a price, you mostly don't get an answer or a text like > "could you > > provide more info, we can't locate the part", but have it listed on > their page ??! > > > > For example: > > http://www.csgparts.com/part_nsn/B5991/ > > > > > > Does anybody know whats going on there? Are those sites running on old > databases > > or just listing parts to get views or something? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/f5339b36-cb2b-4740-8db1-f744b32c728c%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
