How do you guys search Mouser?

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

John

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

Pointing Google at it works sometimes too.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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No. Mouser\'s got a lousy search engine.

As Speff said, this sometimes works:

If you click the *Cached* links, you get something like this http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:9dP4Xzr5pw8J:

The search terms are highlighted so you can spot them easily. (It's still pretty clunky.) . .

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

Hello Jeff,

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:9dP4Xzr5pw8J:

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

Me too.

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.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:9dP4Xzr5pw8J:

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

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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

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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 just did a search on "220uF 4v capacitor" without the quotes at Mouser, and got this:

*220uf*%2b*4v*%2b*capacitor*&terms=220uf+4v+capacitor&Ntt=*220uf*%2b*4v*%2b*capacitor*&Dk=1&Ns=SField&N=0&crc=false It will wrap, so here's a tinyurl:

So, what's the problem? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Hello Michael,

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

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

Regards, Joerg

Hello Rich,

*220uf*%2b*4v*%2b*capacitor*&terms=220uf+4v+capacitor&Ntt=*220uf*%2b*4v*%2b*capacitor*&Dk=1&Ns=SField&N=0&crc=false

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

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

Hello John,

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

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

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.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

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.