Shenzhen sourcing trip November 18th

[ian]

In a few days a couple of the DP crew are going to Shenzhen to do some sourcing. We're trying to score some custom stuff to put in the Seeed store, like a new probe cable, an own-brand soldering iron pencil or push buttons. There will be a few factory tours, a day trip, meetup with Hackvana, and some general exploration of Shenzhen. We're going to post live on the blog about our adventures all next week.

As part of this I started a fulfillment company that will handle shipping of paid orders from the free PCB store. This is for limited stuff (10-20pcs) too small for Seeed to handle. I'll get some fresh for-sale PCBs in there soon, but we can also stock limited quantities of experimental stuff that we find in Shenzhen.

If you have any suggestions/requests please let me know. We will try to find enough stuff to ship back a pallet worth to the fulfillment company, just to say we did.

[bearmos]

There will be a few factory tours, a day trip, meetup with Hackvana, and some general exploration of Shenzhen. .

Cool, I just got introduced to Mitch through this post. I'm curious to have a closer look at Hackvana.

We're trying to score some custom stuff to put in the Seeed store, like a new probe cable, an own-brand soldering iron pencil or push buttons

As far as probe cables go, the kind that tech tools provides with their products aren't bad. The nice part is that one end is connector-ized for their device and the other is just standard 0.1" stack-able sockets. The clips that come with it can comfortably go down to SOIC pitch devices, but that's about it.

Example of nice connector-ized cabling

If you have any suggestions/requests please let me know. We will try to find enough stuff to ship back a pallet worth to the fulfillment company, just to say we did.

How about some lit push buttons as well, this type of thing might become popular for hobbyists if they're priced right - everyone likes blinky things ;-). Not knowing what all Seeed offers, maybe try for some other prototyping tools as well: SMD tweezers, magnification of some kind. What about some DP branded poster tack for holding the PCB while you solder ;-)

[spanner888]

I started a fulfillment company that will handle shipping of paid orders from the free PCB store. This is for limited stuff (10-20pcs) too small for Seeed to handle. I'll get some fresh for-sale PCBs in there soon, but we can also stock limited quantities of experimental stuff that we find in Shenzhen.

Are you able to provide any detail on how the fulfillment company was set up (eg a local employee, or using services of existing company) and also how it will operate (eg ship orders to customers via HongKong or Singapore)?

If you have any suggestions/requests please let me know. We will try to find enough stuff to ship back a pallet worth to the fulfillment company, just to say we did.

How about SMD part sets - the post a few down from this has 13,000+ views and still growing and heaps of responses! Heck you could fill many pallets with even a small part of that amount of interest! Comparing the Taobao prices to ebay and other sellers shows a huge difference/opportunity!

[chiragpatnaik]

Please add European/Indian voltage as well...

[touch]

How about some rainbow ribbon cable? I usually get 40 pair off of eBay or Taobao, but it's kinda pricey - very usefull for prototyping and making test leads out of with the cheap SMD grabbers. Also, various colors of SMD grabbers, binding posts & banana plugs would be nice.

[ginpb]

rotary encoder, and yes rainbow ribbon cable.

[Alex555]

I am not sure if this exists, but some ribbon cable with solid conductors that would be good for breadboarding data buses and such would be great. Some dip switches that take up less breadboard space by just having a pin that sticks into a breadboard power or ground rail would also be great, but I don't think those exist.

[SimplicityGuy]

I'd love to see nixie kits at seeedstudio!

[Alex555]

Vacuum fluorescent displays of random types! Those are the best!

[kenyee]

It's a PITA finding these on fleabay and they don't have a good selection. 0805 please, though I'm sure you guys are going to do 0603 instead :-)

One other thing I've been having a hard time finding is SMD SPST switches that have collars that can be screwed to the front of a case...or something that lets you connect a board to a case's side so it doesn't move around. Supergluing it in place doesn't seem like the right way to do it :-P