Product Lines
Orca Components
Product Lines
Currently no specific lines are listed but we can source almost any electronic component you require. We also have contacts in the far east, including manufacturing, when large volumes or cheaper unit prices are required.
Keep in mind that if you are searching for components that you are probably wasting between $20 to $40 (R200 to R400) per hour trying to find something. We already know where to get most of the components. Secondly you are probably going to pay too much. The supplier will try to offload stock at older, higher exchange rate prices, charge you broken reel prices for full reels and seriously overcharge you on packaging and shipping. Then you have to content with price competition between local suppliers. You never know who is the primary dealer of the component, and as you are waiting for your quote from supplier A, you don't realize that unknown supplier B is the one with the stock. By the time you get your quote the price has been hiked many times. We know these people by name and will, probably after our markup, still be much cheaper on a complete kit than you can get it at. And best of all, we can do it again and again.
Also, many suppliers are on the other side of the planet. This means that you have to catch them early on the their mornings by telephone. Emails usually don't cut it.
Many times local suppliers will come back with a "no quote" on certain items. There are several reasons for this. The primary reason is that they think you are not worthy enough. They might have the components but they are allocating it to their more important clients. When the friendly sales lady tells you that they cannot help you she is probably lying to you. The staff at Orca sees through all of that. The second reason is that you are not important enough to even try and order it from the manufacturer. Many sales people need to make sales in the region of R10 000 to R100 000 per day. Your small order of R100 is not worthwhile. A third reason is that the sales people are not engineers. In fact, if they were, they would not be working in those positions. Many times your part number shorts a suffix or is listed under a different description. We have found already obsolete stock at major suppliers which they did not even know what it was. Many times your part may be wide tolerance, but the supplier does not give you the other options. You need to have worked on both sided of the industry to ask the right questions.
Be careful of obsolescence. Most semiconductors have a limited production life cycle. Suppliers will try and drop end-of-life products on anybody stupid enough to buy it. Your special now will become quite expensive later on. Some keep on manufacturing on the same part number, but with new silicon revisions (most notably Microchip). A little change like this can sink your business when you least expect it. Suddenly your new batch of microcontrollers cannot run your old code anymore (and the programmer is probably long gone by them) or it cannot drive the number of output pins as before. A good example is higher EMI due to the newer, higher speed transistors, just because the new chip went from 90nm to 65nm technology. Suddenly your test certificates are null and void, ... and this usually happens a day before you need to ship. One of our key functions is to keep the client up to date on changes or availability of parts.
Please return regularly to this page to see updates of supported lines.
You can email us at sales@orcacomponents.com . Remember to add all your contact details and as much as possible descriptive details on the components you require.
