BOM Database for Arduino and other boards

[dimas]

Hi all,

I have started filling BOM (Bill Of Materials) database for Arduino related and other open hardware boards here - http://www.beeduino.org/bomdb/ .
My first aim is to get BOM for a few boards fully complete. Check at the same time how thing are going internally.

When working with new BOM, on the first step I do export partlist into a file (usually from Eagle design files). Second - the file is loaded into db and restructured (similar parts are grouped into one row) . Third step - additional info about earch part is assigned with searches for part in http://octopart.com and http://search.digikey.com
If you see some rows empty - then it is yet hard to me to find that particular part with full info in the sources that I said.

I am trying to gather info that seems could be helphul when you learning about new board even if you have assembled board or a full kit.

Are you agree? Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Dmitry

[graymalkin]

I considered opening visual studio just yesterday to make a similar thing!  This is awesome, you've saved me time and work, shame it isn't built into Eagle really. Yet again communities like this come up trumps for filling in blanks.

Thanks very much

Oh, yes, I agree. (incase it wasn't obvious)

[Nicko]

Eagle comes with bom.ulp and there are several other BOM ulps on the Cadsoft download site.

The Eagle newsgroups at news://news.cadsoft.de are the main source of help on this sort of question.

Its worth noting that the latest versions of Eagle have the concept of user defined attributes for parts. What most users do is define an attribute for each supplier you want to use, e.g. DPN xxxx (for DigiKey part number), FPN xxxx (the Farnell equivalent) etc.

When you use the BOM ulps, the attributes are automatically split into seperate columns, thus generating BOMs for however many suppliers you want.

Doing it this way means that the BOM is integral to the Eagle design files (typically the SCH file) and uses ulps that all Eagle users have access to, i.e. no-one needs any special software or databases etc.

Cheers

Nick

[dimas]

graymalkin thanks!
What boards would you like to be there?

[dimas]

Nicko thanks!
I have not used Eagle much yet and I see the feature you referenced as very helpful. Will play with it more.

But also I do not see that BOM info (produced with bom.ulp or other tools) is shared within the many projects.

If anybody knows about BOM's like these available for any open hardware projects - please let me know.

Thanks again.

[Nicko]

Well, a BOM is a Bill Of Materials, almost always for a single project.

What you appear to be looking for is a common repository of parts which you can use across a number of projects.

Devices in Eagle libraries can have attributes associated with each technology type. It may be (and I haven't tried this yet) that when you use a part you can access its attributes from within a BOM ULP, i.e. you can put all your parts in a library with the supplier p/ns, and when you use that part the project BOM will reflect that information.

Best place to punt this one is in the Eagle newsgroups I mentioned above - probably eagle.support.eng or eagle.userchat.eng (assuming you're an Anglo- not a Germanophone, as there are German-specific groups too... replace ".eng" with ".ger")

I should also point out that Eagle has been bought by Premier Farnell (who also own Newark) and that they have stated that they will be providing an on-line lookup & BOM generator in future releases - the first cut at this is called "designlink.ulp" and is in Eagle 5.10 as standard.

Cheers

[dimas]

Thanks Nicko,

I'm testing different tools and use contacts you've suggested. Will come back later to discuss..