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votes
Looking for an electronic components store
I need a new place to buy electronic components and some mildly niche circuits/products that's not Amazon. I'm currently looking for an adjustable temp fan controller for an indoor green house. It's sitting in front of a Window on a shelf covered in plastic. I want to add a 12v dc fan to the top to turn on when gets somewhere around 90 degrees farenheit.
I used to use parts-express.com, but it looks like they mostly just do audio now. Does anyone have any good recommendations for purchasing things like this in the USA.
I tend to go straight to Aliexpress for that kind of stuff nowadays (assuming available to the US fits your in the US requirement!). You’ll be getting the same stuff rebadged if you buy it locally anyway, and as much as the site feels like a bit of a wild west sometimes, I tend to find the descriptions on electronics and components to be more technically detailed and reliable than I’d expect on Amazon.
Electronics nerd checking in.
Many of the parts-sourcing options I would suggest have already been mentioned:
u/Greg mentioned AliExpress - I use Ali to source a ton of stuff (unless/until the De Minimis exemption gets pulled again) - it's great for stuff that doesn't need high precision or stringent safety / quality control. Not that you can't get safe, highly precise, and quality equipment there... you can... but it can also be a wild-west experience with scam sellers and deceptive listings, especially for high-value stuff. Ali is GREAT for connectors, base materials like solder or flux, cheap cables of all sorts, cheap/simple/mass-produced electronics. If it's small, light, and cheap, go to AliExpress.
u/Shevanel mentioned eBay. eBay is AWESOME for all sorts of stuff, especially older / secondhand. You are generally better off going to AliExpress for anything you see on eBay that is shipping out of China though (in terms of price - eBay does have more reliable customer protections though).
u/Akir and u/shinigami have brought up the industrial supply houses. Digikey, Mouser, AutomationDirect - but there are plenty more like Jameco, Newark, LCSC... you can also use OctoPart which is a search engine specifically made for seaching through all (or at least many) such sites.
Now, all that is great discussion, and useful knowledge to have going forward, but might I suggest a pre-made solution to what you want. Go on eBay, buy a super-cheap wall thermostat, a wall adapter that provides 24VAC (most thermostats are powered by 24 volts AC (alternating current)), and then connect the relay output for the AC (air conditioner) side to your fan. The on/off from the thermostat isn't going to power the fan, just supply an on/off relay to turn it on. If the fan we are talking about is small enough (meaning low enough power usage) you can probably put it straight in-line with the relay in the thermostat without worrying about burning out the thermostat relay contact (normally the thermostat relay would only be connected for on/off signal, NOT directly in-line as letting the fan power go straight through it... but for a small 12VDC fan? Probably fine.)
Quick edit: I should probably explain the useful philosophy behind the specific choices I have recommended. Wall thermostats are something that are in darn near every home in the world - that means there are huge economies of scale making them super cheap. There are plenty of companies making wall thermostats, which means there is healthy competition to keep profit margins (and your cost) down, as well as keep quality up. As for the 24VAC wall adapter - wall adapter power supplies of all sorts are in the same category of mass-produced and super cheap. For materials/parts/systems sourcing in general look for manufacturing product environments where a thing, whatever that thing might be, is mass-produced, standardized, and made by a bunch of different companies. That's how you get good and cheap at the same time. Credit where it is due: I got this philosophy from David Malawey on YouTube - he's a former Toyota engineer and very knowledgeable.
This is technically even more wild-west than Greg’s answer, but have you ever checked out eBay? I’ve been retrofitting and upgrading some old laptops recently and I realized that many eBay sellers are actually small electronics vendors that operate out of a brick and mortar shop in the US, but also have a presence on eBay. Might be worth seeing if any parts you’re looking for are on eBay as listings under well-established sellers with lots of reviews and sales, and then beyond that, you could always narrow down your search to sellers based in the US.
Thank you, I've never ordered from them before, but I've looked a little a while back. I'll check it out. I don't really need it to be in the US, just so they ship here.
Just fyi, you didn’t reply to Greg with this comment, instead posting it as a top level comment.
/noise
An INKBIRD with a 12 V ac adapter might be a solution to your problem. And you can get them at Amazon or Ebay or wherever. I run my fridge through an inkbird to "eliminate" (ok, "dramatically reduce") freezing at the back at the fridge.
I’m not sure about premade boards but for discrete components there is always the larger suppliers like digikey or Mauser.
At semi-industrial scale AutomationDirect may have some options you are looking for.