Has anyone tried out the new website datasheets.com?

7/20/2011 12:50 AM EDT

It is good effort. However, there is lot to improve. One shold be able to define query with AND, OR, begins with, ends with, contains, ? * etc. Also result should again be grouped so that we need not have to traverse through so many pages. It need to include MIL parts with QPL part numbers too.

7/22/2011 2:49 PM EDT

Thanks for the feedback hm! Have you checked out the parametric search? Anyone else have any thoughts on datasheets.com?

7/22/2011 9:04 PM EDT

I gave it a try using the Intel 2817 - an old eeprom that I recently had trouble getting data for. Failed miserably. Agree with HM's comments. I also tried various more common eproms (2764, 27256) also with no luck. Most of the results I got were connectors. It would be nice to specify for example "27256 eprom" to narrow down the search a bit. I appreciate that these parts are fairly old and not typical, but that's where datasheet sites shine if they're good.

On the plus side it's nice and fast and very readable display. If you can get the search parameters a bit more specific then it could be very good.

7/23/2011 5:57 AM EDT

Yep, I did. It is always the same sh*t (excuse me for my words) You click on a PDF and then.... You get another useless screen. www.alldatasheet.com is there for ages and works fine. It is free without registration.
BTW, I really hate those b*stards out there with their commercial websites to buy datasheets. They are not even theirs !

7/23/2011 2:40 PM EDT

Gosh, it looks like a total waste of time. It's another of those useless sites that doesn't actually HAVE any datasheets. Like the ones that scam the Google search engine to draw you to their site, they you have to "register or login" to find out that they don't actually have the part.

7/24/2011 5:14 PM EDT

I will need to try it. MY experience with attempting to find data on the web has brought a lot of frustration, in that the first results are from sites that want to sell me whatever it is I am searching for data about, and then the sites that all reference the same item that one party has for sale on ebay. 4200 references to one item for sale are a waste of bandwidth and time. And I certainly agree about the sites that want to sell datasheets.

7/25/2011 8:33 AM EDT

Try www.alldatasheet.com for electronics parts info.

7/25/2011 10:30 AM EDT

datasheets.com has potential, alldatasheets.com are ok. another one is datasheet4u but they are last resort.

I'd recommed trying the Datasheet Archive too (www.datasheetarchive.com) - They have a great database. The data book scanning project and fulltext searching is very good.

7/25/2011 4:25 PM EDT

OK, here's a REALLY tricky one - the Motorola MC145432 - it's a notch filter IC. Datasheet Archive (which is pretty good usually) had a scan of a shortform cat but no full datasheet on it.

I wouldn't object to the pay sites if they weren't so expensive. I'd gladly pay a couple of bucks a shot for a datasheet I want, but you have to subscribe for months. Partminer used to be very good - they have all sorts of obscure datasheets that no-one else has, but they're now prohibitively expensive.

BTW I DID previously get a sheet on the 2817, but thanks to all the suggestions above.

7/26/2011 9:20 AM EDT

As a result of discussions like this and design ideas in industry publications that are nothing more than basic knowledge, I felt that the industry has bootstrapped to the point where we are re-inventing the wheel. I had an extensive electronic data book library going back into the 70s, so I set about scanning all of them in ant attempt to preserve the data.

I have tried to interest universities, trade publications, industry luminaries, and even Google in preserving and/or hosting the data. I have not yet succeeded.

There are some sites that do try to do a similar thing (e.g. bitsavers.org), but have also been unresposive.

I often feel that I have the last repository of some data in the world. Yes I have the data sheet (and have sent it to David) on the MC14532.

Feel free to contact me if you need some obscure data sheet.

7/26/2011 9:53 AM EDT

antedeluvian - you should contact the datasheet archive people (admin@datasheetarchive.com). they have a data book scanning project and are always asking for datasheets / data book dvd/cd contributions.

7/26/2011 6:53 PM EDT

I would never design to a spec hosted on a 3rd party Website. Always go to the source as revisions to the spec could be fatal.

7/28/2011 12:04 PM EDT

I did a couple of quick searches on datasheets.com, alldatasheet.com, and my gold standard "DigiKey.com".

Here are two that I searched for: "SMD crystal 5v 20MHz" and "PIC18F2321"

datasheets.com returned 379 results. Some were thru-hole, labeled as "METAL DIP SMD". Alldatasheet.com returned 118 and Digikey, 138.

For the specific PIC, Digikey returned 11 variants while the other two sites didn't return any results.

Alldatasheets had a very minimal description for each part returned - not enough information to even narrow down the choices. Datasheets.com did a much better job by listing the key parameters (Voltage, frequency and a few others). That makes it considerably more useful in that I wouldn't have to open every single datasheet.

DigiKey is the most useful with almost all of the relevant parameters listed. Datasheets.com comes in second in my book. It's new, so I'm sure they'll be (I hope they will be) taking feedback and making improvements. It's not bad for an early stage site. My advice to them would be to work hard at adding in more of the key part parameters in the list of returned parts.

7/29/2011 4:20 AM EDT

If we had a new search choice, something like "SMD marking", then datasheets.com would become my first choice.
Often we only have a three character code on small SMD packages with no manufacturers logo. So a way of searching for the data, using this package marking would save searching through hundreds of datasheets.
For instance, I have been looking for a part number for a Dual J-FET in a 6pin SOT23 package with the marking 13D. It is used in the input of a Kenwood CS4125A Oscilloscope. It is on a ceramic module and is not listed in the part list for the scope. I know that the module is probably tuned to the original FET and might not be perfect with a replacement FET, but I would still like to try it. I have found other J-FETs but none with the same pinout.

7/30/2011 12:09 AM EDT

I did a quick search today puttign in "BAT54" and was pleased to see some manufacturers I was either less familiar with or hadn't even heard of (plus the usual well-known suspects as well). I'm sure it's a work in process, but another tool for the tool box is always welcome. Don't forget to install a "Leadtime Reducer" button, which cuts leadtime by 50% each time you press it.