How do you guys search Mouser?

[Joerg]

Hello Newsgroup,

Wanted to try Mouser for a small order because they have no min qty and
sometimes better prices. Some transistor there are less than half of the
price elsewhere.

Anyway, I need a 220uF/4V of under 6mm by 7mm. Found it at Digikey in a
jiffy because they have a search mask program. Then I tried at Mouser
and it didn't allow more than one search parameter, leading to tons of
hits. Just curious, did I miss something?

Regards, Joerg

 

[John Larkin]

Hello Newsgroup,

Wanted to try Mouser for a small order because they have no min qty and
sometimes better prices. Some transistor there are less than half of the
price elsewhere.

Anyway, I need a 220uF/4V of under 6mm by 7mm. Found it at Digikey in a
jiffy because they have a search mask program. Then I tried at Mouser
and it didn't allow more than one search parameter, leading to tons of
hits. Just curious, did I miss something?

Regards, Joerg

I just pick up the printed catalog and leaf through it.

John

 

[Joerg]

Hello John,

I just pick up the printed catalog and leaf through it.

Guess that is what I am going to do, although it goes against my grain
from an environmental point of view. Their prices are indeed lower. Even
mundane stuff like the Kester 15mil no-clean. Under 15 bucks while it's
closer to 20 at other places. That adds up.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I just pick up the printed catalog and leaf through it.

John

Pointing Google at it works sometimes too.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[John Fields]

Hello Newsgroup,

Wanted to try Mouser for a small order because they have no min qty and
sometimes better prices. Some transistor there are less than half of the
price elsewhere.

Anyway, I need a 220uF/4V of under 6mm by 7mm. Found it at Digikey in a
jiffy because they have a search mask program. Then I tried at Mouser
and it didn't allow more than one search parameter, leading to tons of
hits. Just curious, did I miss something?

 

[JeffM]

I need a 220uF/4V of under 6mm by 7mm.

[...] Digikey [has a search engine that wasn't done by morons].
I tried at Mouser
and it didn't allow more than one search parameter
Joerg

As Speff said, this sometimes works:
http://www.google.com/search?filter=0&q=site:mouser.com+4Volts+220uF

If you click the *Cached* links, you get something like this
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...c%20Capacitors&pcodeNumber=66106+4Volts+220uF
The search terms are highlighted so you can spot them easily.
(It's still pretty clunky.)
..
..

did I miss something?

Nope. The dead-tree method is what works best.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Jeff,

As Speff said, this sometimes works:
http://www.google.com/search?filter=0&q=site:mouser.com+4Volts+220uF

If you click the *Cached* links, you get something like this
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...c%20Capacitors&pcodeNumber=66106+4Volts+220uF
The search terms are highlighted so you can spot them easily.
(It's still pretty clunky.)
.
.

Thanks, that works. Meantime I have found a few by trudging through
their pdf catalog. While they seem to have no min order qty per order
many of those caps do have huge minimums per line item. Sometimes 2000.
Argh, I had a hunch that there was a catch. If you need just a handful
that just makes no sense.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Wes Stewart]

I just pick up the printed catalog and leaf through it.

Me too.

 

[Winfield Hill]

John Fields wrote...

No. Mouser's got a lousy search engine.

It's not so bad if you know a piece of the part number. Then
it puts up a nice array, with easy selection tools. When you
zero in on the part the information they provide is excellent.

 

[mw]

www.findchips.com

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Hello Jeff,


Thanks, that works. Meantime I have found a few by trudging through
their pdf catalog. While they seem to have no min order qty per order
many of those caps do have huge minimums per line item. Sometimes 2000.
Argh, I had a hunch that there was a catch. If you need just a handful
that just makes no sense.

Regards, Joerg

That is just for items they don't stock, but have listed for OEM use.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[John Fields]

John Fields wrote...

It's not so bad if you know a piece of the part number. Then
it puts up a nice array, with easy selection tools. When you
zero in on the part the information they provide is excellent.

 

[Rich Grise]

Hello Newsgroup,

Wanted to try Mouser for a small order because they have no min qty and
sometimes better prices. Some transistor there are less than half of the
price elsewhere.

Anyway, I need a 220uF/4V of under 6mm by 7mm. Found it at Digikey in a
jiffy because they have a search mask program. Then I tried at Mouser
and it didn't allow more than one search parameter, leading to tons of
hits. Just curious, did I miss something?

I just did a search on "220uF 4v capacitor" without the quotes at Mouser,
and got this:
http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?&ha...*4v*+*capacitor*&Dk=1&Ns=SField&N=0&crc=false
It will wrap, so here's a tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/l7653

So, what's the problem? ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Joerg]

Hello Michael,

That is just for items they don't stock, but have listed for OEM use.

Seems like it because some stuff that comes up via Google does not
appear to be in their catalog. Well, I found a cap that suits. In this
case dimensions are an absolute limit. I need to replenish other stuff
and their web search is really strange. For example, I keyed in 74HCU04
and it found nothing. Tried again, nothing. Tried again after lunch,
found it. Happened more than once. In the DOS days we could write little
batch programs that kept trying...

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

mw wrote:

www.findchips.com

Thanks! Tried it and it found a Mouser part faster than the Mouser
search engine did. Interesting.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

Hello Rich,

I just did a search on "220uF 4v capacitor" without the quotes at Mouser,
and got this:
http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?&ha...*4v*+*capacitor*&Dk=1&Ns=SField&N=0&crc=false
It will wrap, so here's a tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/l7653

So, what's the problem? ;-)

Found it, too, by now. But that's just one part out of a handful. What I
am missing is the ability to veer a little from the desired values if
something isn't there in the right size. Many others let you enter
ranges, say, 180uF through 250uF, 4V and 6.3V, radial only etc. And most
of all the famous "show only what's in stock" check box. It makes no
sense to show whole pages of non-stocked parts.

Regards, Joerg

 

[John Larkin]

Hello John,


Guess that is what I am going to do, although it goes against my grain
from an environmental point of view. Their prices are indeed lower. Even
mundane stuff like the Kester 15mil no-clean. Under 15 bucks while it's
closer to 20 at other places. That adds up.

Regards, Joerg

I have just noticed that they seem to confuse nH and uH in a few
places. That could tweak my filter response a bit.

John

 

[Joerg]

Hello John,

I have just noticed that they seem to confuse nH and uH in a few
places. That could tweak my filter response a bit.

Yes, I did come across quite a few minor discrepancies like that. Often
they do not provide a link to a data sheet either so you have to trudge
through the mfgs sites to find out what it really is.

But this happens in noble places, like that 3.9ohm resistor on the
HP4191 schematic that in reality is 3.9k. I mean, we're talking a measly
60dB difference here. The instance on the processor board where they
flipped a couple supply rails on the schematic was more serious. That
almost ended up in a more serious "bzzzt" situation followed by some
fried unobtanium parts.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Winfield Hill]

John Fields wrote...
You guys are ignoring the nice way Mouser categorizes those
hits, making it easy to zoom in on what you're looking for.

If you know part of the part number you can go to _any_ disty and
get the rest of it. If you don't, and you're at Mouser, you're SOL.

I'm a recent convert to buying more stuff from Mouser. In the
old days they had a reputation in my mind... But now I find
they have interesting parts I crave, high-voltage resistors,
semis from Fairchild, ST, etc., cool stuff that DigiKey and
Newark don't carry.

And I do like the stuff Mouser is doing with their database,
web search, and information pages, etc. For example, this
morning I went to DigiKey looking for some ON Semi mur1100
fast-recovery diodes. They didn't have any in stock, so I
tried Mouser. They didn't have any mur1100 either, but they
offered up five different alternate types of axial-lead 1kV
fast-recovery diodes, ranging from Taiwan Semi's HER108 to
ST's STTH110. I went with Fairchild's uf4007, but could
have picked Vishay's version instead. Very nice, I had
forgotten uf4007 diodes (and never knew about the others).
By contrast, DigiKey simply said NO, and left me hanging.

Once you've selected a part, clicking its name brings up a
page, like other distributors, but with more information.
For example, alternate parts to consider. And who else
shows you this usually-secret proprietary information?
In Stock: 17,177 - Can Ship Immediately
On Order: 25,000 On Order - View Delivery Dates

That last one is very user friendly. Click and see,
25,000 7/10/2006 Estimated Ship Date
If you poke around further, you'll discover they tap into
their supplier's databases, and display potential Factory
Lead Time information, e.g., 13,583* Can Ship in 7 Days
for the NTE version they don't have in stock.

They also have: RoHS Alternative 625-UF4007-E3 In Stock,
showing RoHS choices I could be making.

I'm pleased and impressed. Recommended.

 

[Tim Shoppa]

Wanted to try Mouser for a small order because they have no min qty and
sometimes better prices. Some transistor there are less than half of the
price elsewhere.

Anyway, I need a 220uF/4V of under 6mm by 7mm. Found it at Digikey in a
jiffy because they have a search mask program. Then I tried at Mouser
and it didn't allow more than one search parameter, leading to tons of
hits. Just curious, did I miss something?

You're right, Digikey's search engine is much more engineering-spec
friendly than Mouser's.

With both it is extremely valuable to look at the catalog pages that
match the parts that come up as hits. This is almost a necessity with
Mouser's (where often from the text description it is actually hard to
find out whether it's a through hole or SMT package) but not so
necessary with Digi-Key's.

My one complaint about both: Searching for "10K" will also turn up
large numbers of 110K, 510K, and 910K parts. At least with the Digikey
engine it is easy to remove these at the next step. With the Mouser
search engine there seems to be no easy way.

Tim.