Companies I enjoy doing business with

My very old Ungar 8800 soldering stand had a cracked ceramic iron holder from decades of use/misuse. So I went looking for Ungar on the www. They are no longer with us. But I found that they are now owned by Weller [1] (famous for its big heat soldering guns - basically a hand-held transformer with a shorted turn for the heat generator), which is now owned by Cooper Industries [2]. So I contacted them (Weller still makes the 8800 stand [3] - at least the people at the link are selling them) for a replacement ceramic element. I don't know why (my guess is that they haven't heard someone ask for an Ungar part in decades), but they sent me a free replacement. Thanks, guys!

If you need an AC transformer for a design, or coils or other inductive components, Renco is a good place [4] to shop. They have an excellent free sample service. And some very helpful engineers. Ask them a question or three. They also have some nice design forms [5] on their www site so you can easily ask them to quote a custom design.

Coilcraft [6] has a good sample service. They sent me some transformers a while back for a design I was testing. Unfortunately, the design didn't work out. It was my fault, not theirs. The transformers were excellent.

If your needs run to semiconductors, NXP will help [7] you get your designs off the ground with their sample service.

Also very helpful is Texas Instruments [8]. I like their 16-bit microprocessors and have some samples on my shelf awaiting completion of a board.

M. Simon's e-mail can be found on the sidebar at Space-Time Productions [9].

Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.