Datasheets and avoiding time wasting sites - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 07:45:44 pm
content: Is there any one reliable site for most datasheets? I always click on the wrong links, when all I want is a quick PDF of some part's main datasheet I can copy to my tablet and be done with it.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 07:47:08 pm
content: The only reliable sites are those from the manufacturers. What you find elsewhere is often out of date.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 07:58:20 pm
content: That would be my first choice, assuming I can find them, or a current maker of the part, and they don't make me sign up.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 08:02:58 pm
content: I never found a single site for all and I would not expect to. Sometimes I get lucky and find the manufacturer's right away and sometimes all I find is those datasheet crappy websites that make you waste time and feed you crap, if anything. Often I find it helps to define the search as filetype:pdf

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 08:13:51 pm
content: If you use Google, you can always specify file type pdf (file:pdf) when searching. Example:Code:uA741 file:pdfhttp://lmgtfy.com/?q=uA741+file%3Apdfor, if you want to look only in a specific site, you can use (site:nameOfTheSite). Example:Code:Datasheets and avoiding time wasting site:eevblog.comhttp://lmgtfy.com/?q=Datasheets+and+avoiding+time+wasting+site%3Aeevblog.com

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 08:21:19 pm
content: For old parts, datasheetcatalog and datasheets360 seem to turn up often enough.Note that catalog's PDFs turn up often enough, but you end up getting served a link to the search page, not the PDF. Back out and click it again, it's only PDF from self-referral or cookie or something.I don't think any are free of tracking/ads/"big data" kruft. I used to like datasheetarchive but they went full suck with ads. Boycott 'em.Tim

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 09:36:50 pm
content: I often end up with octopart to find a datasheet, and the availability of a chip. (even the best price)

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 09:38:28 pm
content: For some time I've used octopart just for the datasheets.As everything in life, it's not perfect, but it is a lot better than those datasheet collecton sites which are optimised for catching mouse clicks and also corrup the datasheets.Octopart works also more direct than more general search engines.Lately octopart results unfortunately gets peppered more and more by unrelated sponsored components, mostly from Ti it seems, and octopart has removed direct links (or cached?) Ti datasheets.Once you know the manufacturer of a particular chip you can also go directly to the manufacturer, but that is not always clear with all the mergers of the last decades.If you want broadcom datasheets my suggestion is to switch jobs and do some gardening instead.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2019, 10:07:34 pm
content: I find alldatasheet.com turns up frequently in the search results and has a lot of actual datasheets too.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2019, 12:09:00 am
content: If the parts are not obsolete, big vendors like Mouser or Digikey, apart from price/stock, have links to the product's pdf datasheet, too.