Digi-Key has changed and it is not very good

[ataradov]

Still don't see it. I see that Canadian version has toggles for Condensed/Expanded/Detailed View, and they seem to be persistent.

But really, I don't care. I switched to Mouser for the past couple orders and had a great experience. I don't think I will do any business with DK until it is possible to permanently disable the marketplace. For sketchy components I have LCSC, which is working fine at a fraction of a price.

[SilverSolder]

Having a "Classic" version of the web site is the sane thing to do for most companies, given that the new web dev teams so often end up annoying existing users.

Here's another big company that learned the hard way:

https://www.nasdaqtrader.com  was revamped with a new look.

They were soon forced to launch http://classic.nasdaqtrader.com ....

Finally, they gave up on the new site, which reverted back to to the classic one after failing to implement the features that people expected from the old site!


There's a lesson in here somewhere...

[Bud]

Same happened to Paypal web site, they run two interfaces for some time but gave up after a while.

[Pete66]

Digikey screwed up.  If I want marketplace I go to ebay or Ali express and take my chances.

[Elasia]

They arent that bad if you dont have to use their website at all.. i usually get stock info off of octopart.com.. aka altium.. my bom manager does the entire bit for me.. non of this marketplace rubbish, if i need to browse parametric i use mouser if just fishing around.. digi pulled a newegg sometime ago so havent really used their website in awhile and wont really be back.. digi only gets PO orders from me as such

[ataradov]

LOL. They listened to feedback. Now the checkbox is called "Exclude" and is unchecked by default. So now you still need to click on it every single time if you don't want garbage parts, but it no longer sticks out as a sore thumb.

LOL, again.

[tooki]

So having the box be “include” is more consistent.

Having the only checkbox enabled by default is also inconsistent. Yet here we are.

Former UX designer here. That's not inconsistent at all.

Checkbox logic is about function, not aesthetics. And it's been long established that "select to not do X" semantics are generally much harder to use. Obviously it depends on the situation, so there will be exceptions, but as a rule, you word checkboxes in the affirmative and then have any defaults selected by default.

LOL. They listened to feedback. Now the checkbox is called "Exclude" and is unchecked by default. So now you still need to click on it every single time if you don't want garbage parts, but it no longer sticks out as a sore thumb.

Oh yay, they changed it for the worse… 

[james_s]

LOL. They listened to feedback. Now the checkbox is called "Exclude" and is unchecked by default. So now you still need to click on it every single time if you don't want garbage parts, but it no longer sticks out as a sore thumb.

LOL, again.

 

[rfclown]

I just went to Digikey and I see that "scrolling" is now the default. I didn't like it when they added the "stacked" and made it the default. Good to see a positive change. I wonder if they'll log how many people choose "stacked", and if it's nobody, take it away.

The Marketplace stuff has bugged me also, but on the other side, obsolescence has become a HUGE issue in recent years. At work we replaced an obsolete TCXO in the last year, and we just got a notice from the manufacturer that the new part is going obsolete. To fix the issue before, we redesigned the circuit to work at a different voltage since the manufacturer was obsoleting the 3.3v part (we went to 1.8v). We were able to do that with only BOM changes. Now they say no 1.8v, and no one else makes the same thing in the same footprint. No fun doing a re-spin on a complicated 20 layer board. Sometimes the obsolete stuff can be found at a place like Rochester Electronics, so at least having this stuff there makes it easier to find.

I also bought a Sparkfun breakout board on Digikey recently because Sparkfun was out of stock. So having these things (Adafruit, etc.) at Digikey is ok by me.

I almost always select "cut tape", and then do a double take when I still see the packaging column, thinking "didn't I already select that one?"

I hope they listen to feedback and improve (just make it like it was). I still find Digikey search better than Mouser. I usually choose USPS first class and get stuff in 3 days for low shipping cost. I don't think Mouser has that option.

[floobydust]

I tried their LED Indication - Discrete... it's mostly useless.
Why can't you just click buttons on the (root) colours you want - blue, green, red, ice blue etc. instead of this insane picklist from hell.
The picklists are just populated by whatever a manufacturer specifies, rows and rows of irrelevant numbers.
Nobody picks a forward voltage like this, pic related.

I noticed the dimmest LED in the world? and it's a weird Lumex LED with built-in comparator for low battery indication. Totally orphaned because it's not just an LED, you'd never find that in this in the Product Index.
It's never going to (it didn't) sell, you could never find it. NSL4944 forever.

Digi-Key should blow out these oddball parts in a surplus section.
Why don't they have a surplus section anyhow, there's lots of oddball parts that will never sell. I wonder where they go.

[bombledmonk]

I tried their LED Indication - Discrete... it's mostly useless.
Why can't you just click buttons on the (root) colours you want - blue, green, red, ice blue etc. instead of this insane picklist from hell.
The picklists are just populated by whatever a manufacturer specifies, rows and rows of irrelevant numbers.
Nobody picks a forward voltage like this, pic related.

The one, less than ideal, thing I can say is the easiest way to get around this is to type the colors you want into the "search within" box at the top of the filter area.  We are looking at ways to improve this situation, here and several other areas like MCUs.

I noticed the dimmest LED in the world? and it's a weird Lumex LED with built-in comparator for low battery indication. Totally orphaned because it's not just an LED, you'd never find that in this in the Product Index.
It's never going to (it didn't) sell, you could never find it. NSL4944 forever.

Digi-Key should blow out these oddball parts in a surplus section.
Why don't they have a surplus section anyhow, there's lots of oddball parts that will never sell. I wonder where they go.

You actually ran across one of the "lucky" unique parts that seemed just oddball enough for you to investigate.  A lot of really cool parts don't really have a great way to "market" themselves on their own manufacturer's websites, let alone distributors.  Out of curiosity I just checked that Lumex part, it has enough sales to justify shelf space.  That said, lots of products end up at a metal recovery recycler or going back to the manufacturer.

Part Data, Data Normalization, and Taxonomy is an extremely challenging task that involves 100's of people.  Oddball parts are one of the hardest things to deal with and regularly get the short end of the stick.  One key thing to remember though is that parts are not always discovered on a distributor website. They are also found via other methods like FAEs, word of mouth, manufacturer's websites, reference designs, etc., but having the part numbers and being in stock is advantageous for the procurement folks at companies regardless of on-site findability.  If it's not it stock somewhere, most people won't design it in. 

[floobydust]

A problem is the picklists are being blindly populated by specific values from each manufacturer- instead of a class or grouping, or range to input. The result are huge picklists that are a click fest and totally unusable. The one LED out of 20,320 gets a spot in the main picklist at intensity 0.01mcd and it's silly clutter.
I can't specify a range for ANY parameter such as brightness, forward voltage.   The focus is on getting all that analytics crap bogging everything down but the developers can't change it to a range or buttons? Is this some kind of rocket science where the god of Java must be consulted?
Nobody shops for LED's based on exact forward voltage. It's a grouping based on the semiconductor technology i.e green LED InGaP with ~3V is totally different than AlGaInP with ~2Vf.
Nobody shops for LED's based on exact brightness, i.e. 3.7mcd verses 3.92mcd


All you have to do is sort by any column and look at outliers, they are almost always errors. LED Indication - Discrete
Example: LED Lens Color BLACK? wtf is that, where is your common sense. No IR for indicators nor for the long wavelengths. None of those 3 parts are correct, oh wait they're all actually phototransistors "Phototransistor LED Indication"   One is a Marketplace item "Color: Phototransistor" 

I sorted my search results by Forward Voltage and noticed many are 14V, 12V in a T-1 package having an integrated resistor    which is interesting but you don't offer it as a property in the Features column so I would never really know. If it has a built-in resistor or comparator (low battery detect), those are features.

[SVFeingold]

Though I love DigiKey I concur with the annoying picklists. And also the way sorting is sometimes done...

0.8V
0.9V
10V
1V
1.1V
12V
etc.

Comes up from time to time. The best example of a company saying to suppliers "you will fall in line with these categories and you will like it" is McMaster. And look at what a joy that site is to use.

Same for manufacturer-specific footprint codenames (for common footprints) getting mixed into the list. Which can actually be useful sometimes, but mostly just gets in the way. I get that it's a huge amount of work to do for all the parts already in the system, but it needs to happen sooner or later.

[_joost_]

There is a filter selection to exclude marketplace products

[asmi]

One key thing to remember though is that parts are not always discovered on a distributor website. They are also found via other methods like FAEs, word of mouth, manufacturer's websites, reference designs, etc., but having the part numbers and being in stock is advantageous for the procurement folks at companies regardless of on-site findability.  If it's not it stock somewhere, most people won't design it in.

This is true for major parts like CPU, interface IC, when major part of your design revolves around that choice, but there is a whole bunch of what I would call "support parts", which are necessary for main parts to work, but are not super-critical as to what specific P/N or vendor to use. These are things like passives, or transistors, logic level converters, simple logic gate ICs, and other things of that nature. Capacitors are especially annoying - for decoupling you'd want low ESL, for DC-DC converters - low ESR and high ripple current - good luck finding either of those parts on Digikey via filters. Part of the blame for this goes to manufacturers, as they rarely publish these things, but the end result is that it's still a nightmare with trial-end-error being the only viable method at the moment.

[floobydust]

[...] "Phototransistor LED Indication"   One is a Marketplace item "Color: Phototransistor" 

There is a filter selection to exclude marketplace products

It raises a good question- who looks after the quality of the Marketplace data? I could see cowboy vendors filling things up with garbage.

[james_s]

Same for manufacturer-specific footprint codenames (for common footprints) getting mixed into the list. Which can actually be useful sometimes, but mostly just gets in the way. I get that it's a huge amount of work to do for all the parts already in the system, but it needs to happen sooner or later.

That drives me nuts. I have a hard enough time remembering all of the standard packages without trying to remember the half dozen other designations for the same footprint.

[Terry Bites]

Its not just them. RS and Farnell have completely fkd their websites over the past few years. Have they forgotten who uses their sites? I seriously wonder if they have an engineer on their staff!

[james_s]

You actually ran across one of the "lucky" unique parts that seemed just oddball enough for you to investigate.  A lot of really cool parts don't really have a great way to "market" themselves on their own manufacturer's websites, let alone distributors.  Out of curiosity I just checked that Lumex part, it has enough sales to justify shelf space.  That said, lots of products end up at a metal recovery recycler or going back to the manufacturer.

That's unfortunate. I like the idea of a surplus section where all sorts of random slow movers are sold at rock bottom prices, say scrap value plus enough overhead to cover the expense of packing them up. Turning finished parts back into raw materials is a far less efficient form of recycling than getting them into the hands of people who could do something with them. A "surplus bin" would be a great draw to a section where all of that marketplace stuff could be offered alongside remnants and slow movers where it would not be so out of place. Engineers designing new products aren't going to want surplus parts and they're not likely to want marketplace stuff either but the hobbyists and "makers" looking for bargains are exactly the sort who might consider the marketplace stuff.

[floobydust]

Managing inventory is very difficult, just look at all the brick-and-mortar retailers going bankrupt because they'd bungled it.

If a part isn't selling - there are many reasons "management by numbers" can screw up:

Inventory shows part in stock, but actually there's none or trade-size incorrect (reels, tape, bulk, single). You can't sell what you don't have, or packaged wrong for typical production.
A part out of stock looks like a loser, it's not selling better drop it. My grocery store sells out of items fast, then thinks the item is selling poorly  and drops it from their lineup.

Inventory shows part in stock, but actually there's an error in specs/category. You can't sell what customers can't find.
Inventory shows part in stock, but it's been replaced by a new part. You wouldn't design-in old parts, so it gets orphaned.
When parts get discontinued, the price gets jacked up to make money from desperate purchasers I guess, until Engineering gives an alternate p/n on the BoM. I don't see any discounted/surplus pricing at all on Digi-Key and assume they then sell the stuff to surplus dealers, probably Marketplace Vendors lol. I get annoyed the items have gone up not down in price.

The New Product intros are nice, but there's nothing highlighting unique, cool parts or the lineup afterwards.

[chickenHeadKnob]

That's unfortunate. I like the idea of a surplus section where all sorts of random slow movers are sold at rock bottom prices, say scrap value plus enough overhead to cover the expense of packing them up. Turning finished parts back into raw materials is a far less efficient form of recycling than getting them into the hands of people who could do something with them. A "surplus bin" would be a great draw to a section where all of that marketplace stuff could be offered alongside remnants and slow movers where it would not be so out of place. Engineers designing new products aren't going to want surplus parts and they're not likely to want marketplace stuff either but the hobbyists and "makers" looking for bargains are exactly the sort who might consider the marketplace stuff.

I concur. Something weird  was up with the price of cypress PSOC5 parts on digikey. They are normally hella-$pensive but for a time in 2020 a few parts in the series could be had in the $2.50-$3.00 range "without warranty". I assumed it was because the shelf life had expired with respect to moisture content guaranty, no problem for the hobbyist. Digikey had good stock too like 4000 units. So I said to myself I'll come back later and buy 10 and have a lifetime supply. All gone now.

[bombledmonk]

The New Product intros are nice, but there's nothing highlighting unique, cool parts or the lineup afterwards.

The long dead paper catalog was one of the more useful ways to discover products, and that experience has doesn't really have a digital analog.  The amount of effort placed into curating such a beast had many benefits along with the overall density that paper gives you when browsing.  Highlighting cool or unique parts has always been a strong desire for the engineers and technical people internal to the company.  As a very genuine ask, if anyone has run across industries or companies that do this well, it would be great to see examples. 

I concur. Something weird  was up with the price of cypress PSOC5 parts on digikey. They are normally hella-$pensive but for a time in 2020 a few parts in the series could be had in the $2.50-$3.00 range "without warranty". I assumed it was because the shelf life had expired with respect to moisture content guaranty, no problem for the hobbyist. Digikey had good stock too like 4000 units. So I said to myself I'll come back later and buy 10 and have a lifetime supply. All gone now.

You found some stock that is being cleared out on behalf of Cypress.  There are other MCUs, but not a huge assortment.  There's other product categories also. 

[tooki]

I couldn’t agree more. I LOVE perusing catalogs.

What amazes me is how few web shops use variants (i.e. one product with various styles/values) and instead just present endless lists of individual SKUs. Even the ones that have variants rarely present the series well. Catalogs tended to do this very well.

[Ysjoelfir]

What the heck has happened here? The last times I was in the antenna section I didn't remember it being THAT shitty....

[SilverSolder]

I couldn’t agree more. I LOVE perusing catalogs.

What amazes me is how few web shops use variants (i.e. one product with various styles/values) and instead just present endless lists of individual SKUs. Even the ones that have variants rarely present the series well. Catalogs tended to do this very well.

It is actually a huge PITA to set up in most e-commerce software.  Easier to just fill it with SKUs...