deadlylover

Hey guys just an update on the sato denki / 4686A sand group buy I was getting a long while back; Unfortunately I can't see myself having free time anytime soon to orchestrate the group buy, I really expected to have some time off recently but it just didn't happen. Please accept my apologies if I had delayed your builds or anything like that, despite my best efforts in trying to convey that the group buy was for stockpiling purposes only. I do have 500pcs of 4686A on me sitting around, so if anyone in the US needs a handful and is also up for helping me to distribute them, I could ship the lot to that person. We can work out the details later if anyone does volunteer. Again, sorry for letting you guys down.

I was thinking about doing another bare boards run, but I won't get around to it for at least a couple of months. Anyone interested? I'd like to stock a decent chunk. Last I checked, everything was still available at mouser, so no problems there.

No idea, they don't have "low stock" on the description. PM's are a little easier, but I will check both carefully and prepare a spreadsheet before I send the order off.

Well, they're from Japan and not China, so that's a big plus already, and I've used some of their stuff in my KGSSHV and it checks out fine. I think they're priced well because their website is very...basic, they're not well known at all, and they don't deal with anybody overseas. IIRC somebody here used some of their stuff in his DIY T2, but my memory is fuzzy. I'm happy to order a few samples of anything for pics+basic checking with that cheap tester.

I might as well go the whole hog and open up the orders for anything on their site. I will shoot the order in a couple of weeks, to give time for people to get in. Here are the links for FETs, 2SA, 2SC. I believe they are the best prices anywhere for most things, a little cheaper than B&D and some other places without having to worry about fakes! Keep in mind I won't be able to ship for a while, but I may be able to accommodate one or two urgent orders, but I'd rather not if possible. Consider the order for 'stashing' purposes only!

You're right, life's too short. I'll clean them out and report back later.

Sigh, the buggers upped their price from 116 to 168yen, I didn't think they'd up the price so quickly. I did happen to get the 500 at the $1.50 mark (151yen after commission), the new price for another order will be ~185yen @ 10% comm. with Kuboten or a few other places. The current order total is exactly 500 pieces too, so I'm thinking about either closing it up here and forfeiting my stash of 500, or, averaging the price out for an extra order. Let me know what you guys think.

Oh wow, I didn't think so many people would be interested. PM's are fine too, no need to clutter the thread. Please assume the price will be ~AUD$1.50, I will try to get it down as low as possible, but no promises! Again, this will be at cost price, but somehow I can't help but feel like a bad guy charging so much. I don't know when I will be able to ship (quite busy atm, might be a month or two), but I will set them aside for you (bailing out anytime is cool), just lemme know how much you're interested in. We'll worry about payment and other details once I can send the packages out. Looks like we might actually clean them out after all.

Hi guys, another update on the 4686. Satodenki had heaps, but unfortunately, they wouldn't budge on the price even when I tried to order 1500 pieces. I did secure a small order of 500 @ ~$1.50ea (commission/ poor exchange rate and all that) just in case. I'll jump through some hoops and try and order another thousand or two while figuring out the best exchange rate and shopping around for the best commission on proxy services. I'd estimate the best price I can get is $1.25ish, which isn't super great compared to when it was in production, but it's not too unreasonable IMO. I'll keep you guys posted.

Hi guys, just an update on the 4686A. I spoke with RS online, and it was indeed a glitch on the system, they don't have any coming in unfortunately. I will then liberate satodenki of their 4686's, I've gotten a few PM's about it as well, and I'm happy to share them at cost price if I'm successful.

Thanks spritzer! I'm not too sure what's going on here, rs-online says they have some 4686a coming in a couple of weeks despite the part being discontinued. I might clean them out if that's not an error. Failing that, I'll clean out satodenki, but it might be expensive at ~$1.50 a pop.

Nicely done with the build, and good luck! I didn't switch off my on-board KGSSHV for a month as a torture test (safely), and it didn't break a sweat. Anyway, in regards to the potential group buy, I'm up for re-distributing the boards for the Aussies if needed, along with some sand (I've still got ~50 spare 4686A if anyone needs some). And on that note, are there any notable performance differences between the 4686A's and the 01N100D's as the output devices?

I was planning to do a run through pcbnet once the new layout is ready. Happy to ship worldwide, but since I'm in Australia, shipping is veeery expensive. I don't think I'll be able to handle a fully fledged group buy though (I'm no lil' knight ), but I'll help where I can.

Yeah I'd be happy to send some pins over if you don't want to buy the 100-pack. I'll be at 210/300 pins spoken for now with yourself included.

Cool, I'll be more than happy to buy the pins separately for myself/Team Australia, that way you can save some pins for the people who are only ordering a few jacks. For anyone in Australia who wants the jacks to go through me, mark it on the spreadsheet so I know how many pin packs to buy, I'm guessing 1 or 2 should do it.