🚀 go-pugleaf

While these charges seem high ( and they are ) these parts and their
distribution are not something any average consumer would deal with.
To make matters worse it seems you got them from high volume "industrial"
inclined distributors as opposed to a distributor who is more inclined
to work with smaller orders for hobyists. Also having worked in a different
area for the past few years the manufactuer you quoted "AMP" as I
recall is in the area of connectors not regulators as I recall. AS so
much of Joel's post is true I copied it all. You were out of the
consumer arena on this one. 



Joel Kolstad (kolstadj@PEAK.ORG) wrote:

: Trust me, Hallmark is definitely reporting taxes to California.

: Hallmark is what's known as an "old boy" distributor.  They've used to dealing
: with purchasing departments or other beauracracies.  Their average order
: is probably in the multiple-hundred dollar range.  They are not at all
: suited to providing a single device to some guy who hasn't been indoctrinated
: into the "old boy" distrubutor network. :-)

: I agree with the other posters that the original guy can expect to be able
: to return one of the two parts that he didn't really order; Hallmark was
: at fault for not informing him of their "minimum order" policy and 
: just haphazardly deciding they'd ship him two items instead of one.  

: The $50 restocking fee is not unusual for an old boy.  These places often
: are relatively inefficient (and this is not entirely their own fault), and
: it often does cost unGodly amounts of money for them to re-stock things or
: process orders.

: The way things work with old boy distributors is that you as an engineer
: or a purchasing department cultivate a relationship with the distributor's
: sales people, who'll come and visit your company on regular occasion to
: tell you what new and exciting things they're selling.  You can usually
: get free samples from these sales people if there really is a chance you're
: going to use the parts in a future design.  When that happens, your company,
: which is hopefully used to dealing with distributors, calls up Hallmark and
: orders a 100 widgets, and everyone's happy.  But the wheels turn very slowly,
: you see.

: One other thing: the original poster mentioned that the regulator didn't come
: with instructor.  Well, no duh.  Hallmark really wants you to buy 100 
: regulators and know how to use them yourself.  If you're deemed worthy,
: Hallmark has salespeople who will come out and give you the data books for
: any parts you say you're interested in.  This is how you figure out how
: to use a given part.

: You might ask the sales departments to transfer you to someone who handles
: data book distribution and try to sweet-talk them into FAXing or mailing
: you a copy of the data sheet for the part you have, which may help you
: figure things out, but which certainly won't say "Remove Pentium, place
: regulator in position U3, blah, blah."

: 					---Joel Kolstad