I do a lot of hobby work with power LEDs and I’m lazy. Fortunately, just before the crisis, I decided to just get 100 pcs of my favorite driver IC instead of the 8 I needed for that specific project.
Now you know how some of us wanting the ridiculously “easy to get” Raspberry Pi 4 feel. They’ve been out of stock for months and months at many vendors.
I’ve resorted to the “grey market”. DON’T do it! Needed some FT232RLs. Found them in Turkey and on Alibaba. Ordered them and populated a couple of boards. Worked. Did the full production run: 98% failures. **The grey market suppliers placed two good chips at the start of the sleeves and the rest were counterfeits!**
The marking on the IC’s would simply rub off when touched.
Not just LDO’s, MCU’s, FTDI’s, most actives…
Some at ***90 WEEK*** lead times
I resorted to antique 1970s vintage parts for my latest project.
You can find yourself a substitute. You have the package name and everything important in the datasheet.
We keep joking at work that if a product ends up messed up we could always blame it on being designed in 2022.
I feel you.
I do a lot of hobby work with power LEDs and I’m lazy. Fortunately, just before the crisis, I decided to just get 100 pcs of my favorite driver IC instead of the 8 I needed for that specific project.
Now you know how some of us wanting the ridiculously “easy to get” Raspberry Pi 4 feel. They’ve been out of stock for months and months at many vendors.
I haven’t designed a new product in two years. I’ve just been focused on getting existing products moving out the door again. It’s been rough.
The chip shortage is “over” when I can buy any CAN transceiver or controller I want from stock.
https://www.lcsc.com/mobile/product-detail/Linear-Voltage-Regulators-LDO_Texas-Instruments-TLV71333PDBVR_C90840.html
I’ve found that LCSC has pretty good availability, especially if you’re willing to use the Chinese knockoffs.
i call this supply chain b.s. “JOB SECURITY”
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embrace it
I’ve resorted to the “grey market”. DON’T do it! Needed some FT232RLs. Found them in Turkey and on Alibaba. Ordered them and populated a couple of boards. Worked. Did the full production run: 98% failures. **The grey market suppliers placed two good chips at the start of the sleeves and the rest were counterfeits!**
The marking on the IC’s would simply rub off when touched.