For the first time ever, Digikey sent me a full-line catalog.
It’s 2778 pages long, three inches thick, and weight 2 kg.
Some time ago I made the mistake of replacing our large rusted-out mailbox with a much smaller one: the catalog presented a solid wall of paper when I opened the door.
Here’s a closeup…
Now, I’d love to have you believe I’m such a high-rollin’ kind of engineer that Digikey spares no expense on my behalf, but the only explanation for this embarassing situation I can come up with is that their customer service system blew a gasket in my general direction…
What makes it even more ironic is that they’d recently sent me a survey asking how I’d like to get their catalog. I’d emphatically replied that I did not need a paper catalog or a USB stick with the PDFs. Just let me do the on-line searching and occasionally refer to the appropriate PDF pages and I’ll be fine.
The damned thing is basically useless; I hate to just toss it in the recycling, but I can’t think of any reason to keep it around.
I just removed my mailing address from their list, presumably leaving my account info intact; we’ll see if that sticks.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Comments
6 responses to “Digikey Full-Line Catalog”
Honestly? I kinda like the tome. I’ve discovered products that I didn’t know about just by thumbing through the catalog. For prices/ordering I go to their web page. But “window shopping” through this massive catalog has made me aware of products that I otherwise would not have known about.
Yup, I just tipped it into the trash can with a resounding thud.
It spent a while in the Reading Room and I did page through it on most visits, but (even though I enjoy catalogs) it just didn’t pass the “Am I going to ever use this again?” test.
These are handy for ripping out the pages to use for packing material. 20-30 crumpled up pages make fine padding for the occasional eBay shipment.
At work we get a pallet of them every four months, because they send one to every engineer who has ordered parts. It’s an incredibly frustrating waste of material. Plus, we get a pallet of catalogs from Newark and Mouser. Mouser’s latest is (lemme pull out the calipers…) 2.43″ thick. Digikey’s is 2.58″ thick. Newark wins the prize at 2.73″ thick. For 20 engineers, that’s a stack of catalogs 12 feet high, roughly 8 cubic feet of solid paper, every four months. *sigh*
Yes indeed. My mailman failed to close the mailbox door tightly and a good rainstorm followed. Ever tried to get one of these (in particular, one that has been rolled to fit into the mailbox) out of the mailbox after it is swollen from absorbing all that water? It was not a pretty sight.
Ouch!
Leave it there long enough, it’d produce enough pressure to crack concrete…