Attending ElectroneX 2026 [waynejohnson.net]

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====== Attending ElectroneX 2026 ======

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Last month I attended ElectroneX 2026.

For years I've been wanting to go to an [[https://www.linkedin.com/company/electronex-australia|ElectroneX]] show but every year something always gets in the way.

This year I caught a reminder on LinkedIn that it was coming up at the Rosehill Garden Exhibition Centre. So I got in touch with the Professor to see if he was keen to go. He definitely was, so we made a date of it.

It's mainly a trade show. Australia doesn't really much in the way of general electronics shows.

ElectroneX is all about where businesses come together. If you're looking for ready-made parts to bring a product to market or to find vendors supplying connectors, components, small-form factor boards, this is the place to be.

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There were tools like oscilloscopes, camera scopes, workbench equipment, small pick-and-place machines and board inspection machines: some that featured interesting AI.

What does the ElectroneX show offer for someone who might be an enthusiast, student, independent contractor, someone who might be developing their own prototypes, or those not representing the interests of a particular company?

Is it interesting to go along anyway?

This article is from the perspective of the above lot.

The Professor and I met up at the entrance and headed on in. The plan was to ensure we visited every booth.

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Right at the entrance, while we were setting up our recording gear, along came Dave Jones from the [[https://www.eevblog.com|eevblog]]. He was wandering past doing his recording of the entire floor. I got to meet Dave and have a quick hello which was a bit of a treat.

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For those who don't know, and most will in Australia, Dave Jones not only runs the ''eevblog'', he is also the co-host of [[https://theamphour.com|The Amp Hour]] with Chris Gammell.

From there, we started around the various booths. Very excited to see quite a number of vendors that I actively use.

We headed right and came across a vendor with every conceivable lithium battery shape, size, and chemistry. Very interesting to see them all arrayed out in cases and seeing the variety of sizes and form factors available beyond the usual 18650.

As previously mentioned, one of the most fascinating machines (though very expensive) was a quality control machine for inspecting PCBs. It featured a high resolution, high depth-of-field camera that scans across the PCB looking for faults.

This was, as they said, an AI-powered machine. So not only was it looking for damage or issues with component placement but was also trained to learn from previous boards to know other situations. They were explaining that the general idea was that customers would share their trained data with other customers. But this was not a popular feature. And so the machines instead come pre-loaded with training data. That was a incredible machine to watch.

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Wurth were there. I've known them for their quality capacitors but they sell all kinds of top notch components which I've bought through other online sellers like RS Electronics (who weren't there). I didn't realise that Wurth have an Australian branch and [[https://www.we-online.com/en/components/products|online store]]. According to the booth staff, they sell to both company and independents alike. Delivery times are apparently through them and prices cheaper than via a third party seller. I found that going through their site didn't appear to be a very straight-forward process like other online vendors.

[[https://au.element14.com|element14]] were there, pleased to see them at the show. I do buy from element14 (or RS depending) for when I don't want to take the risk on quality. For everything else, AliExpress is my go-to. Though element14 delivery times seems to be getting slower these days. I ordered from them a month ago and at the time of writing it's still crawling it's way across the globe.

But they were a fantastic bunch of people on the stand though. Had a great chat with them.

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Next highlight for me was meeting [[https://xentronics.com.au|Scott Williams of Xentronics]] out of Melbourne. He was manning their booth along with some of his staff. I first heard about Scott and Xentronics on the [[https://theamphour.com/645-moving-down-the-stack-with-scott-williams|Amp Hour Podcast Episode #645]] when he was interviewed by Chris Gammell. Great to meet him and get to talk a little bit about the ideas and products being developed and how the company is going.

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[[https://www.pcbway.com|PCBWay]] were there. I am a big fan of PCBWay though sometimes I feel like every man and his dog are advertising for them. My favourite Youtube channels can get a little PCBWay-ed out at times, but they do run a quick and inexpensive high quality service. They are also the company that [[https://commodore.net|Commodore]] chose to produce the new Commodore 64. 

What was a surprise is that they also do CNC milling for you. We're all familiar with the PCB printing service where you send them a gerber and you get back a produced PCB. They explained that if you need a particular part milled, and you design it, you can upload that model to them and they will produce it for you. Of course, the more complex the model the more costly it is. They will inspect it for complexity and look for manufacturing issues. It's a fantastic service that I am going to use. 

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Looking at some of the sample parts that they had on show I was really impressed with the look of them. There are times when a 3D printer just won't cut it for robustness or for being out in the elements.

Jaycar was not at the show, and you would probably say that they're not in the same market. But their competitor [[https://www.altronics.com.au|Altronics]] was there. For whatever reason I thought they were WA-only, but they are expanding slowly into stores in a few states. I hope they continue to expand. I'd love to see a shop in the Canberra region. I thought they used to have a shop in years gone by in the electronics strip down York Street, but I think that must have been David Reid or an early Jaycar. They were good days.

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There were oscilloscopes everywhere. Lovely new small Rigol scopes which were really nice. Also huge Tektronix ones and you had the whole Rohde & Schwarz kit, up in the thousands mark, right out of my price bracket. Saw their VNA up around the $10,000 mark. This one had a "slightly" broader range of frequencies than my NanoVNA, as you might imagine.

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We did come across [[https://www.micsig.com|Micsig]], a whole range of these little tablet styled scopes. Looked really good, but I'd call them mid-budget priced.

I'll probably stick to my Rigol 1054Z, even though the selection dials can be clunky at times.

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There is also something to be said for having physical knobs and buttons. A tablet-styled scope would feel more like a computer than a tactile tool.

There was the Diligent booth with their active stable range of FPGAs like the Nexys A7. 

There were a lot of local and international circuit assembly vendors there. Also certification service vendors for performing tests on your product including radio interference, combustion, lightning damage, temperature tolerances, etc.

One company, and I'm afraid I cannot find their details was showing some of their IOT sensors, clever ideas to detect water levels from the outside of bottle and containers. If I recall the products, I'll link them here.

[[https://www.microchip.com|Microchip]] were there. I am a big fan of Microchip's PIC microprocessors, and still use them in projects today. On display were some fun projects like the robot hand that watched and followed your hand movements. They also had some of their [[https://www.microchip.com/en-us/tools-resources/evaluation-boards/curiosity-nano|Curiosity Nano development boards]] on display. We had a great time talking to those guys.

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At lunch time we headed to the cafe which was the only option. Don't want to sound too harsh, bu the food was "OK". They had things like burgers that were a bit on the expensive side for what they were. Pies were a bit dry looking. I ended up opting for a sausage roll. Probably should have had a wrap in retrospect. Next year a packed lunch I reckon. It was nice to sit down and assess the day with the Professor, reviewing what we had seen. 

I think we both came to the same conclusion: that if you're into electronics, and not affiliated with a company at bulk scale, there's still some interesting things to see and it's still worth going at least once just to see the booths and hear all the noise and conversation.

Being there sparked many ideas and generally fuelled the passion for embedded electronics.

Here's an extra bit too: everybody on every booth were so keen to talk to you, no matter who you were. Obviously they don't know who you are, or who you represent. Even if you do happen to mention who you are, everyone wanted to talk to you no matter what.

Booth owners were also pretty eager to scan your lanyard card so they could be in touch later with more product detail and offers. That was totally fine.

We were there for hours and I really enjoyed it. Would I go again? I think I probably would go once more, maybe in a couple of years. 

What I would love, if the ElectroneX organisers are listening... it would be fantastic if smaller, maker-style vendors or online retailers could be more present at the show if it was economical to do so. It would be great to the see the Core Electronics of the world there, Little Bird, or the various IOT online sellers.

Also specialist electronics like Sparkfun displaying their boards, modules and tools.

I'd like to see electronics meetup groups like ACES, a movement in Australia for electronics enthusiasts, or the Meshcore community and others. Perhaps for non-profits, if they could have free or low-cost booths manned with volunteers. 

The second thing I would love to see at the ElectroneX show is the ability to buy items. Say for example, Microchip, Core Electronics or element14 could sell showbag selections of micro-controllers, modules, batteries, components, motors, wire, parts and tools. Yes, of course we can order all these things online, but you may spot a particular item you've not tried before. To be able to grab a few things to try them out. 

And showbags are just fun.

I don't know if that changes the nature of the show, legally or economically and therefore increases the prices for organisers and booth holders?

And look.. if ElectroneX remains just a trade show that's fine. But it would be a real shame to not capitalise on the opportunity to make it THE all encompassing electronics show in Australia that spans the entire spectrum of interest in the field to make it a larger and broader event.

So we'll see about next year.
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