Open Source Lack of Funding...

[Ricketty C]

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 8:11:45 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 30/7/20 4:23 am, Rich S wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

Oh sorry, I downloaded an xlsx file, opened it in Excel and saved it as
a TSV (Tab Separated Values) file. The xlsx file was presumably
generated from that Java API, not from Excel. I didn\'t see any MSI nonsense.

Maybe I should put up a web service that makes an up-to-date version of
that file more easily searchable . Would anyone here subscribe to that?

CH.

Maybe you can tell us what info is in the file?

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 30/7/20 10:36 am, Ricketty C wrote:

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 8:11:45 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 30/7/20 4:23 am, Rich S wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

Oh sorry, I downloaded an xlsx file, opened it in Excel and saved it as
a TSV (Tab Separated Values) file. The xlsx file was presumably
generated from that Java API, not from Excel. I didn\'t see any MSI nonsense.

Maybe I should put up a web service that makes an up-to-date version of
that file more easily searchable . Would anyone here subscribe to that?

CH.

Maybe you can tell us what info is in the file?

The column headings are:

LCSC Part
MFR.Part
First Category
Second Category
Package
Solder Joint
Manufacturer
Library Type
Description
Datasheet
Price
Stock

The Price column has multiple price breaks.
Stock is the available stock count, changing from day to day.
Datasheet is a pointer to their own archive of data sheets.

Unfortunately many Chinese fabs do not provide English language data
sheets for otherwise nice-looking parts.

Over 37k parts available, with 27K currently in-stock.

CH

 

[Ricketty C]

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 9:10:07 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 30/7/20 10:36 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 8:11:45 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 30/7/20 4:23 am, Rich S wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

Oh sorry, I downloaded an xlsx file, opened it in Excel and saved it as
a TSV (Tab Separated Values) file. The xlsx file was presumably
generated from that Java API, not from Excel. I didn\'t see any MSI nonsense.

Maybe I should put up a web service that makes an up-to-date version of
that file more easily searchable . Would anyone here subscribe to that?

CH.

Maybe you can tell us what info is in the file?

The column headings are:

LCSC Part
MFR.Part
First Category
Second Category
Package
Solder Joint
Manufacturer
Library Type
Description
Datasheet
Price
Stock

The Price column has multiple price breaks.
Stock is the available stock count, changing from day to day.
Datasheet is a pointer to their own archive of data sheets.

Unfortunately many Chinese fabs do not provide English language data
sheets for otherwise nice-looking parts.

Over 37k parts available, with 27K currently in-stock.

CH

Ok, so this info is virtually useless for selecting a part. Nothing technical in it. Just a rather general category and package. Everything else must come from a data sheet. I guess you can exclude some parts on price even before you know what they are exactly.

I don\'t get what you feel this will accomplish. This info is easily available from their web site. In addition to package you can select manufacturers in some categories. Otherwise it\'s a matter of digging into the data sheet on every part in the list.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 30/7/20 2:21 pm, Ricketty C wrote:

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 9:10:07 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 30/7/20 10:36 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 8:11:45 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 30/7/20 4:23 am, Rich S wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

Oh sorry, I downloaded an xlsx file, opened it in Excel and saved it as
a TSV (Tab Separated Values) file. The xlsx file was presumably
generated from that Java API, not from Excel. I didn\'t see any MSI nonsense.

Maybe I should put up a web service that makes an up-to-date version of
that file more easily searchable . Would anyone here subscribe to that?

CH.

Maybe you can tell us what info is in the file?

The column headings are:

LCSC Part
MFR.Part
First Category
Second Category
Package
Solder Joint
Manufacturer
Library Type
Description
Datasheet
Price
Stock

The Price column has multiple price breaks.
Stock is the available stock count, changing from day to day.
Datasheet is a pointer to their own archive of data sheets.

Unfortunately many Chinese fabs do not provide English language data
sheets for otherwise nice-looking parts.

Over 37k parts available, with 27K currently in-stock.

CH

Ok, so this info is virtually useless for selecting a part. Nothing technical in it.

Exactly. Except the info for selecting the part often *does* exist in
LCSC or DigiKey. Cross-referencing that data so the list can be used for
part selection would be useful and potentially time-saving. I was
suggesting automating that by web scraping, to reduce the mammoth effort
it would take to do it manually.

CH.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Thursday, July 30, 2020 at 2:40:00 AM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 30/7/20 2:21 pm, Ricketty C wrote:
On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 9:10:07 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 30/7/20 10:36 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at 8:11:45 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 30/7/20 4:23 am, Rich S wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 11:58:11 PM UTC, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 29/7/20 6:54 am, Ricketty C wrote:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 4:36:06 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 28. juli 2020 kl. 20.44.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricketty C:

I found where they say they don\'t install your parts. If they are part of LCSC, why wouldn\'t they work with all the LCSC inventory? Heck, even the LCSC site is not that great. They can\'t even tell you what they carry and what they don\'t without going to the individual pages. They seem to list a bunch of Chinese FPGAs, but don\'t actually have any of them.


guess it is not for you then, it is a helluva lot better than the old way with
even a tiny PCB costing 1000s, assembly another 1000s and that\'s after spending weeks ordering and labeling parts

Yeah, but if you need a hammer, selling you a hamburger is not so useful even if it\'s with a free drink.

If I want a board with parts on it they don\'t offer I have to hand solder or find someone with a hot air station. But the part that really bugs me is the huge work required to select parts from their difficult to search data base. That is where it turns into a false economy even if the boards are free.

My time is worth a few bucks. I\'d love to get the prototypes cheaper, but I\'m not going to waste my time searching for parts in a non-database.

It\'s a problem, but I\'m trying to surmount it for my own designs.

The JLCPCB parts list is a CSV file, which includes datasheet links as
well as price breaks and stock levels. You can load it into Excel, but I
just use Unix \"grep\". It\'s in categories, but some of those are too
non-specific. For example there are 780 in-stock DC-DC converters, and
no information to choose between them. Also, some of the probably-useful
chips only have Chinese language datasheets.

LCSC has a parametric search engine which is good for some categories.
It\'s unfortunately useless for DC-DC converters, because the parameters
simply aren\'t populated. Also, JLCPCB doesn\'t have all the LCSC parts,
so you need to cross-check the CSV.

I\'m toying with the idea of auto-downloading all the JLCPCB datasheets,
and linking them to a database from the CSV file. Populate that with
LCSC web links... add generalized parameter storage/search to the
database and start populating it... perhaps including some web scraping
of Digikey\'s parameters...

Then, progressively build a Kicad library (of footprints, etc) for the
parts listed, possibly even modify Kicad\'s library system so a
parametric search over the database can be used to select symbols and
footprints...

The whole thing would be a big undertaking, but the result could be very
slick to use. Maybe I could persuade LCSC to fund it...

Clifford Heathmsi

Hmm, please, where did you find the CSV file?
I only see this link:
https://jlcpcb.com/componentSearch/uploadComponentInfo

which downloads a binary file (compressed into a .msi file).
In the file near the top is \"Java Excel API v2.6.12\"

Oh sorry, I downloaded an xlsx file, opened it in Excel and saved it as
a TSV (Tab Separated Values) file. The xlsx file was presumably
generated from that Java API, not from Excel. I didn\'t see any MSI nonsense.

Maybe I should put up a web service that makes an up-to-date version of
that file more easily searchable . Would anyone here subscribe to that?

CH.

Maybe you can tell us what info is in the file?

The column headings are:

LCSC Part
MFR.Part
First Category
Second Category
Package
Solder Joint
Manufacturer
Library Type
Description
Datasheet
Price
Stock

The Price column has multiple price breaks.
Stock is the available stock count, changing from day to day.
Datasheet is a pointer to their own archive of data sheets.

Unfortunately many Chinese fabs do not provide English language data
sheets for otherwise nice-looking parts.

Over 37k parts available, with 27K currently in-stock.

CH

Ok, so this info is virtually useless for selecting a part. Nothing technical in it.

Exactly. Except the info for selecting the part often *does* exist in
LCSC or DigiKey. Cross-referencing that data so the list can be used for
part selection would be useful and potentially time-saving. I was
suggesting automating that by web scraping, to reduce the mammoth effort
it would take to do it manually.

If you are talking about pulling data from Digikey and incorporating that into your data base along with the same search functionality that Digikey has, that could be useful. Anything else would just be a tremendous time sink. Without the search capability there is no way to choose a part from the JLC data.

I normally think of \"cross-referencing\" as linking to other data such as providing the JLC database with links to the Digikey information. But that is not useful. What is useful is the search capability. Using the Digikey search without the JLC content information is pointless because you will have far too many hits in the Digikey data that do not have an entry in the JLC data.

One database with a complete parametric search capability is the only way this can be useful. Anything else is just kidding yourself.

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[M Philbrook]

In article <9dae51b2-5385-4620-a46e-f731fd7dfaa3o@googlegroups.com>,
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com says...

The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.

So now tells the story of why you are so up and up over the COVID, its
all about money for you, isn\'t it?

I have some nice words I could add to this message abuot what I think
about those takng advantage of an event, true, exaggerated or just made
up.

 

[Ricketty C]

On Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 5:11:48 PM UTC-4, M Philbrook wrote:

In article <9dae51b2-5385-4620-a46e-f731fd7dfaa3o@googlegroups.com>,
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com says...

The project leader on the ventilator project has managed to have a few of the rev 1 boards built, but they are terribly full of bugs. Just stupid things that would have been caught in a design review, but until I came on board there was no one to do the design review with.

We are working on rev 2 of the board (something the Brits like to call Mk 2). It has been a real cluster f**k because of the lack of a requirements analysis and \"stuff\" just keeps changing and getting added.

The project lead had been working on getting the rev 2 boards made for free by JLCPCB, but now that we\'ve sent a BoM to them they said they will only assemble parts from their parts list. I\'m not certain this excludes us providing parts they don\'t carry, but still, just trying to go through their list to see what they have that might be compatible is a huge time sink.

It\'s not remotely like using Digikey. They let you select from a general category, then a sub category. Then you can select a package. Then you have to wade through all the parts individually and view data sheets to get info. It reminds me of the 90\'s.

JLCPCB links to LCSC for all of their parts. Are they connected? I see links between their sites as well as to EasyPCB.

So now tells the story of why you are so up and up over the COVID, its
all about money for you, isn\'t it?

I have some nice words I could add to this message abuot what I think
about those takng advantage of an event, true, exaggerated or just made
up.

Off your meds again?

How exactly do you think I\'m making money off this disease? No, don\'t answer that, I don\'t want to feed your delusions.

--

Rick C.

++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209