Need a place to purchase around 50 LEDs in San Francisco

December 5, 2007 11:46 AM

I need to purchase 30 to 50 orange or red LEDs by this Friday. Where can I get them as cheaply as possible in/around San Francisco?

I need these lights for a project that has to be completed by the end of this week. I've purchased this set of lights from eBay a few days ago, but I doubt they're getting here in time.

The lights should be orange or red. Diffused/wide angle LEDs preferred, but not necessary. Size isn't important, but around 10mm sounds good. Purchasing 50 lights from Radio Shack is pretty pricey. I considered cannabilizing a set of LED Christmas lights, but it might be a pain in the arse to extract each light individually.

Do I have any other cheaper options for getting these lights in San Francisco? Are there awesome electronic stores that sell them in bulk, or should I suck it up and hit up all the Radio Shacks in the city?

posted by agenais to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (10 answers total)

I bought some cheap xmas LEDs from Target a few weeks ago. They were in a three pack for about a buck. I did have to pull them out of the little plastic insert before using them, but that turned out to be pretty easy.
posted by chrisamiller at 11:50 AM on December 5, 2007

You could always run down to Fry's
posted by bottlebrushtree at 12:13 PM on December 5, 2007

You could probably order them from Mouser and have them delivered overnight for less than it would cost you to get them retail. These 4mm ones are very wide angle and cost 12 cents each.
posted by Killick at 12:28 PM on December 5, 2007

I'm not sure how far you want to go, but back when I was in college we'd head over to Halted in Santa Clara to get stuff like that. 10 years ago when I went there they had bins and bins of LEDs, looks like they still have quite a collection. Their site says they also have stores in Rohnert Park and Sacramento too.
posted by cftarnas at 12:44 PM on December 5, 2007

Best answer: Jameco is a Digikey-like electronics supplier in San Carlos. If your project requirements aren't too stringent, chances are they've got what you're looking for.
posted by merkuron at 12:50 PM on December 5, 2007

Seconding Halted or maybe Weird Stuff?
posted by jasper411 at 2:02 PM on December 5, 2007

You don't work for Cartoon Network, do you...
posted by wfc123 at 3:05 PM on December 5, 2007

Best answer: Don't go to Radio Shack, it'll be expensive. You can order something online at Jameco and just set it as will-call/pickup. They're right off of 101 (as in, you can see them from the freeway) near Oracle.

Other than that, definitely try Halted as jasper411 suggested. Weird Stuff should be a last resort, as they don't really carry much in the way of LED-type components (although I do remember seeing some small electronics there).
posted by spiderskull at 7:11 PM on December 5, 2007

Avoid Weird Stuff on principle (since there's no weird stuff there; just a bunch of old computer hardware). I agree with the recommendations upthread for HSC (although until now I didn't realize their H stood for "Halted").
posted by Rash at 9:46 AM on December 6, 2007

Response by poster: You guys are all sorts of awesome! I picked up a couple hundred LEDs (along with some other fun goodies) at Jameco on Thursday since it was the fastest and closest option. Thanks to all for the suggestions!
posted by agenais at 9:40 PM on December 8, 2007