[sdiy] Buying surplus 1/4" jacks/plugs for DIY patch pay

[patchell]

    Hmmmm....I don't want to introduce any F.U.D. here (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt),
but when you are dealing with surplus jacks, you are going to be taking some risk.
If you can, purchase a small quantity to check their quality.  Besides the plating,
the quality of the spring that contacts the tip is important.  I have had jacks
that lost their spring...and you seem to care about endurance.  If you have a real
switchcraft jack, compare the surplus one to that. Of course, the risk of buying
just a few (of surplus jacks) is that they might not be there when you go back to
get the rest....boy, I sure am a gloomy Gus tonight...

    Also, Keep in mind that the list price for Switchcraft 1/4" phone plugs is
$1.25 each (100s), so I would use that price as the basis for judging if your
surplus jacks are a good deal.  29 cents sounds pretty cheap.  And buy extras.  I
recently purchased some toggle switches at a rate that was about 1/5 what you would
expect, and I had to weed out the ones that were no good.  You may (or may not)
have to do the same with the jacks.

"R. D. Davis" wrote:

> Does anyone have any suggestions for a good place to purchase a fairly
> large quantity of 1/4" mono phone jacks and plugs that will withstand
> use in a patch bay?  After looking at the prices of patch bays, and
> being a bit thrifty, I decided to go the DIY route to see how little a
> 64 jack patch pay can be built for.  Does anyone think US$30, or even
> US$20, to be an unreasonable goal to aim for?  Surely it's possible!
> :-)
>
> I found one surplus place selling chrome-plated jacks for as low as
> US$0.29 each in quantities of 100, and plugs for US$0.50 each... so
> far, this seems fairly cheap, but, surely, way cheaper prices for
> chrome plated jacks, and plugs, can be found somewhere... :-)
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
> --
> Copyright (C) 2002 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
> All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
> rdd at rddavis.org  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
> http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

--
 -Jim
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