Search tips and tricks


Public Service Announcement: Upverter allows you to search and explore part data for over 1.4million components without logging in! https://upverter.com/parts/

Sometimes, simple search isn’t good enough. When that happens, it’s time for super search.

Simple Attribute Searches

Attribute searches are helpful when you’re looking for things with particular properties. For parts, every attribute in the part is indexed, so it’s generally a good idea to pick common attribute names (e.g., height, resistance, package). Attribute names are case-insensitive.

If you’re looking for multiple values, you can join them with OR, parenthesizing the values. If either the attribute or the value has spaces, you’ll need to double-quote them.

  • tags:usb
    • Search for projects and parts tagged with usb.
  • owner:upverter
    • Search for projects owned by upverter.
  • package:(0402 OR 0603)
    • Search for parts with a package of 0402 or a package of 0603.
  • manufacturer:"Texas Instruments"
    • Search for parts manufactured by Texas Instruments.

Numeric Queries

Thanks to lots of unit tests, searching for specific number values is relatively painless. Units are normalized (e.g., m, meter, metre; A, Amps, Amperes; ° Celsius, ° C, degrees C) and SI prefixes are expanded. In other words, 3cm is equivalent to 30mm, both in Upverter search and in reality. (We’re also not picky about the space between the number and the units, so you can even write 30 mm, if you really wanted to.)

  • resistance:330ohms
    • Search for all parts with a resistance attribute of 330ohms. Equivalent to resistance:“330 ohms”, resistance:330Ω, resistance:0.33kohms, resistance:“0.33 kΩ”, and other such variants.

The difference between resistance:330 (without units) and resistance:330ohms (with units) is subtle, and probably not relevant for most searches. An attribute value with units will be indexed as both with and without units; an attribute value without units will only get indexed as a number, and shows up only in the unitless search.

In other words, when you create a part, don’t forget your units!

Range Queries

Upverter search now allows you to search for a property within a particular range. Whee!

  • resistance:[300ohms TO 400ohms]
    • Search for all parts with a resistance property of 300 ohms to 400 ohms, inclusive on both sides. Note that number normalization is in play here, so 300ohms is equivalent to 0.3kohm and so on. Also note that due to how we’re handling units (that is, not at all), searching resistance:[300ohms TO 400ohms] is equivalent to resistance:[300 TO 400], which is equivalent to resistance:[300F TO 400F]. (If you can think of a plausible situation in which this gets weird, let me know.)
  • resistance:{330ohms TO 400ohms]
    • Search for all parts with a resistance property of 330 ohms to 400 ohms, exclusive on the lower end but inclusive on the higher end.
3 Likes

Updated for range queries, which are now deployed.

Suggestions for search are also welcome. If for whatever reason (there may be many), our search engine doesn’t quite do what you want, let us know and we’ll try to figure out how we can make that easier for you.

It’s unclear to me how to narrow search within the schematic editor part placement tool. For example, I wanted to place a Microchip MCP73831. Rather than design the part, I’d like to see if it’s there… so I click on the “component” tool, type “MCP73831” into the “search” bar, and hit ENTER… the first page of results gives 20 parts, none of which contain the search term. The next 10 pages of search also don’t show the part.

I realized afterwards that specifying MCP73831* or MCP73831T will get the part on the first page, but -how do you narrow the search to an exact match? Why do parts that don’t contain the search string show up in the search results? For example, searching MCP73831T has a 3-pin Darlington transistor, 2N3904… (https://upverter.com/upn/7666a4e783ebad38/) why?

Hi dhorvath,

We’ve released a brand-new search engine in the last few weeks, with comprehensive faceted-searching and relevance logic. I’m pretty confident you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for without any funny syntax - let us know how it works for you!

Adam

type:connector gives a result with a part that has jack in description
type:connector description:jack gives no result

https://upverter.com/explore/parts/?q=type%3Aconnector+description%3A"Jack"