Has anyone tried out the new website datasheets.com?

If so, what does everyone think?

I don't trust a source other than the manufacturer to get datasheets from.

The website has a nice layout, but I'd like to see the search application show search descriptions and inventory without having to login and/or create an account.

Are you the marketing manager for this product?

Really, you don't use any datasheets search engines? That is interesting. What don't you trust about other sources?

Hey Joe, thanks for your feedback - it is appreciated! And – Yes, I am part of the datasheets.com team. If you are interested it would be great to talk some time.

Why you must be a member to download? dislike for that.

This is actually wise; there's no way to know for certain that you're viewing the latest datasheet unless you get it straight from the horses mouth.

Datasheet specifications are often corrected in an errata document - very complicated parts like microcontrollers usually have a good number of corrections after the parts is first released.

Hey, George. Part of the reason for the login is that you can save your past searches and start your own personal datasheets library. Also, we are working on some other features that will need to be associated with a login.

That is good stuff then

Nicholas,

I just sent you a PM. By the way, how many total datasheets do you have in your database?

Thanks Joe! Also to answer your question, 185 million parts are searchable and virtually every single one of them has an associated datasheet with it.

Yes, what Joe said. If I'm looking for a specific part I know the manufacturer, so I don't see the problem going to their site to get the datasheet. If a I don't know the manufacturer, then a Google search will find that.

At best you will only have the same information as the manufacturer. I just don't see a point to a middleman, and some drawbacks. What if your site accepts advertising, for example? How can I trust the information about one vendor when it came to me paid for by a competitor?

I suppose there might be some advantage if you collect a lot of stuff and make it easily searchable, but then only if you ultimately link to the live copy at the manufacturer's site with a URL I can clearly see is from the manufacturer.

This is what distributors do, and I do use those links regularly. I really dislike it when distributors keep their own copies, even worse if they edit the datasheet. Jameco comes to mind. They add that annoying Jameco page to the start of every datasheet, so I don't go there when looking up stuff and wouldn't trust it if I ran accross it. It also pisses me off they try to get in my face every last place they can. Better distributors like Mouser and DigiKey understand the way to get customers is to supply good information, not constantly get in your face about who to buy from. I buy from Mouser and DigiKey a lot more than from Jameco.

Hi Olin, you make some good points. But i would like to make some points also. At times, manufacturer websites are not well maintained or only list datasheets for families of parts.

Websites like datasheets.com help break out the part numbers possible from datasheets and let you download the datasheets per individual part.
This is especially important if you’ve inherited a part list from somewhere and have found no place to look for that part.

Secondly, if you’re searching dozens of parts at the same time, then searching manufacturer websites one by one is a laborious process.
Sites like datasheets.com can help improve your productivity and let you chase your design, not parts or datasheets.

Thirdly, lots of manufacturers remove listings of part numbers that have gone obsolete.
If they no longer manufacture the part, they at times no longer make the datasheets available online.

Datasheets.com keeps track of active, obsolete and even parts that have last time buys associated with them. The obsolete parts might be available in the market through distributors still stocking them, but the datasheet or parametric info might not be readily available.

A couple facts about Datasheets.com: we never modifies datasheet PDFs and Datasheets are linked directly to the PDFs hosted on the manufacturers’ websites.

I usually prefer options like these to be optional. For example all information, downloads, etc are available to all visitors. But if they would like to sign up then features like past searches and a personal library are available.

So I already despise your registration screen. I fill it out, but don't check the EE Times subscription box, because I already subscribe to EE Times, and anyway, this is Datasheets.com. So it comes back and says I must check the box, and, by the way, you have to fill out the registration again. Fail.

I agree -- Data Sheets from the manufacturers are the most reliable. GlobalSpec.com has over 5 million data sheets, but we do not scrape free data sheets from the web like some data sheet websites. All our data sheets come directly from our partnerships with thousands of OEM manufacturers and distributors. We then stnadardize the data across different manufacturers & distributors so that each data sheet is in the same format in the same units, etc., so you can compare apples to apples side by side.

I often see this about mfg datasheets being the latest and most reliable. I often require a specific version of a datasheet that relates to a specific revision.

If its obsolete or you want an older version of the datasheet then datasheetarchive.com - If its an active part then always go to the manufacturer. You can do this through distributor sites or findchips