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Russell Beattie reports on his blog that the Home Depot has really good deals on cables and other items, better than the usual retailers, he writes - "Home Depot sells a lot of electronics cables right on the same aisle as the extension cords. Everything from RCA adapters to ethernet cables - and they're all really cheap! Or I should say, relatively cheap, compared to every electronics store I can think of like CompUSA or BestBuy which crank up the price on the simplest cables to obscene levels by pretending they are all "gold-plated, high quality" cables or whatnot." - Link. I wouldn't be surprised if Home Depot became the "new Radio Shack".
Related:
Pictured here, the The 5-in-1 Network Cable. Nothing's worse for a network administrator than being without a needed cable. Make a single cable to replace the five you need - The result: no more tangles and no more scrounging for a missing link. MAKE 01 - Page 96.
I can attest to this. I used them to purchase what I needed to wire up my house.
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DIYers have long attested to the in-wall speaker wire from Home Depot. I've used it myself without any problems, although if you have known RF issues you may want something that is twisted better than the wire from HD.
I've found that while the wire is inexpensive, the connectors and other various items on the shelf at HD are cheap in quality, but not necessarily so in price.
If anyone knows the price per cable (including the connectors and length) for any given cable pieced together at HD, I'd be interested in a comparison with the prices and quality you get from this website:
www.pccables.com
I've used pccables for lots of things, including DVI, HDMI, s-video, and component, as well as some audio and found them to be high quality and very low price.
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' I wouldn't be surprised if Home Depot became the "new Radio Shack" '
It IS the new radioshack ever since radioshack stopped carrying anything good. Especially here in canada. $5+ for a .5v tiny solar cell.. or $15 at home depot for a Compact floro solar flood light which has panel, light + charger. Hmm, can you spot the potential savings here? not to mention the panel in the $15 solar flood light = 12 radioshack cells (12@$5=$60 ouch)
plus, you can make more dangerous items from the stuff at home depot ;)
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It's been a few years, but when I bought my rj-45 crimper, Lowes was quite a bit cheaper then Home Depot. I seem to recall something like a $10 difference on the crimper, and a comparable savings on the cable. Not sure if it's still true, but the saving were enough to justify the trip if it's not too far out of your way.
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' I wouldn't be surprised if Home Depot became the "new Radio Shack" '
It IS the new radioshack ever since radioshack stopped carrying anything good. Especially here in canada. $5+ for a .5v tiny solar cell.. or $15 at home depot for a Compact floro solar flood light which has panel, light + charger. Hmm, can you spot the potential savings here? not to mention the panel in the $15 solar flood light = 12 radioshack cells (12@$5=$60 ouch)
plus, you can make more dangerous items from the stuff at home depot ;)
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My local Home Depot charges way too much for CAT 5 and CAT 6 cable. When I was there three days ago they were charging 25 cents a foot for CAT 5, which is ridiculous when places like Newewgg sell 1000 feet for $49.99 before shipping.
Didn't really look at the prices of the other cables they have, I bet there are some good deals there, just not on CAT 5 or CAT 6.
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I answered my own question:
According to the article, Home Depot sells a 15 foot network cable for $6.98.
PC Cables sells it for, drumroll please:
$1.69
http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&id=ID1337923&partno=02203&search=ETHERNET&rsite=pccables.com&rcode=
Note that with shipping you are up to $7.65, but that's for one item. Shipping costs per unit go down quite a lot with more items - ten such cables costs a total of $24.96 with shipping, which makes the cables, even with shipping, almost 1/3 the cost of Home Depot when you need a handful of items.
Same with RCA cables:
Article: Home depot= $3 (no length given)
PC Cables = $2.55 for 2 x 12' of gold connector, clear cable; $1.35 for 6', $0.95 for 3'
http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&id=ID1337970&partno=02417&search=RCA&rsite=pccables.com&rcode=
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Home Depots have several types of Cat5 cable. I think they have a non-plenum cable for 18 cents per foot around here (Dallas area). It's fine for in-wall, crawl space, or attic. Not as cheap as the 500 foot roll at Fry's, but much cheaper than a "computer" store for making patch cables.
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These guys have fast service, great prices, and good quality patch cables/jacks/etc:
Deep Surplus
7' cat5e cables are under $1/ea and 14' are under $2/ea.. plus they have cat5e toolless jacks for $1.50/ea ($6.50 or so at home depot)
I did buy my bulk cable at home depot though... too heavy to ship cost effectively... 1000' of cat5e riser for like $69 and 500' of quad shield coax for $49.
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Last time I bought Cat 5 at Lowes, the non-plenum stuff was $.09/foot. Like I said before, that was at least two years ago, so the price may have changed. I did comparison shop at the time, though, and they were notably cheaper then Home Depot. Sure you can get it cheaper online, but if you don't really need 1000', $.09 is a tough price to beat.
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