We list parts from Premier Farnell which is in the UK and we'd like to get part data RS Components. Who else would you like to see? If you let distributors know that you'd like to see them on Octopart when you make purchases, that would help greatly.
If you go to the Pricing tab you'll see links to buy the parts through popular North American and European distributors. This data is supplied via Octopart.
I wish there was Octopart UK. Was trying to track down some nice Hall effect sensors to measure wheel speed on a robot I'm working on and bouncing around from vendor to vendor is a mess.
I actually use Octopart as a product catalogue and then find the things it finds in the UK.
In the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have to spend at least £20 to pay by card).
The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective they are pretty awful) but orders will ship from the US and take longer.
I agree and disagree. Octopart is very revealing if you do low volume manufacturing had have been caught in the 'digikey convenience turbine'. Like any search engine, it's useless if you don't have the part. But there are a lot of core parts to a generic circuit board listed, so I end up using it quite a lot.
Octopart is the YC website I use the most. In addition to current revenues, I'd suggest there's an opportunity to build a marketplace for parts too. I'm often looking for parts online to buy that simply are not available or require custom manufacturing. An alternative to eBay and other consumer marketplaces for parts, components etc. Generally anything B2B/B2B2C is under-served in comparison to B2C.
Weird – I have been able to order parts for a client in the UK. I've used it mainly for connector harnesses.
I love their connector harnesses and I have standardized all my prototypes around them. It sounds expensive at first, but it's cheaper and less annoying than making them myself or hiring someone to do it for me.
I disagree. I use Octopart regularly. If something's hard to find, at least Octopart tells me where it's NOT at. One query, and I know 1/2 a dozen of the usual suspects that I don't need to bother searching. That's a big win for me. Now that they have Digikey, that's also a big win.
I have no idea where you're finding parts at, that they don't have in their database, besides the sleezy feeling parts brokers that tell you they have everything, even if they don't, so you'll contact them and they can try to locate the part for you at $5.00 per IC for a $0.35 part. I have no interest in these people. If I have to resort to them, than I won't be able to find production quantities anyway.
Yay, I hope you can influence Altium in a positive way. CAD is changing so much and some of the old school guys want to get back to the old days of $25,000 "seat" licenses and what not but that horse has left the stable. Octopart has been my go to source for finding parts (and datasheets given the crap that is the datasheet web spam) for many years.
As a Computer Engineering student, Octopart is defiantly one of nicest sites for buying parts or just looking for data sheets. I actually wasn't aware it was a YC company, but it makes sense!
I had noticed that the UK distributors that I use on a regular basis, RS and Farnell, have stopped hosting TI's datasheets on their sites. It makes it quite annoying to make a quick check to see if the part does what I want.
Whats up at TI? They used to be great for datasheets and Appnotes.
I'm not sure I understand - Octopart does not sell any parts. Digi-Key's core function is to sell parts. They do in fact have a warehouse of parts and a team of salespeople, whereas we are three guys working out of cafes. Our interests certainly overlap to a high degree in that we both want accurate part information. But Digi-Key is in the information business in the same way that Walmart is in the information business (a company that also re-sells most of its inventory from manufacturers in its supply chain).
It's nice, but it doesn't tell me all that much I can't get from other sources like Octopart
What does "parts popularity" mean, anyway? You probably don't have sales volume. Number of distributors? Part popularity is actually useful; you want to design using popular parts when possible, to avoid supply problems. Seeed Studio is big on that; that's why they have a recommended parts list of parts they can easily get in Shenzhen.
I couldn't find any parts I searched for, like a common voltage regulator. Even searching parts already found on the octopart site (https://octopart.com/ft232rl-reel-ftdi-19172117), didn't come up in the demo.
This exactly. I'm looking for commodity parts, I don't want to preemptively narrow that search.
Also often times you'll find some great component on e.g. Maxim's website, only to find no one distributes it, so it's effectively useless in the immediate sense.
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