Octopart and Ultra Librarian

Octopart and Ultra Librarian have been partners since 2022. This partnership was a natural choice as our engineers have been leveraging Ultra Librarian’s pre-built symbols, footprints, and 3D models that can be downloaded and imported directly into the latest Altium formats for some time. As an engineer, the access to accurate part data via Octopart’s search engine, partnered with UltraLibrarian’s CAD models is key to the design-in process.

We sat down with Chris Banton to learn more about how Ultra Librarian and Octopart work together to streamline the design process.

Octopart:

At Octopart, 60% of our users choose the Altium format to download UltraLibrarian CAD models. How are the Ultra Librarian users interacting with the CAD models and resources? What do you see as trends for how Octopart users are utilizing Ultra Librarian?

Chris:

Octopart and Ultra Librarian provide a natural fit with each-other for a complete path for an engineer to research, access, and source the parts they need. We are seeing the demand continue to increase for the CAD models we provide across all vendors. I see this connection increasing and deepening as we move forward based on the initial demand we have seen so far.

Octopart:

This partnership is important to Octopart, evidenced by the thousands of Octopart users that download Ultra Librarian CAD models each month. What kind of trends do you see emerging for users on Ultra Librarian and how they want to find information related to their work?

Chris:

We have found that when a person downloads a CAD model from Ultra Librarian they are doing so in order to design that part into a product. If an engineer is looking to design-in that part, they need to ensure that the part will be orderable when needed. This is where the data from Octopart comes into play. It allows the engineer to have confidence the part they are designing-in using our CAD models will be in-stock and ready to ship.

Octopart:

Ultra Librarian has over 16M part numbers supported with CAD models on Octopart.com. What does your CAD library look like for 2023 and what can the Octopart users look forward to from Ultra Librarian?

Chris:

We have a lot planned for 2023 that we are excited to share as things roll out. As always we will continue to expand our library to cover as many parts as possible, while continuing to enhance the solution with new integrations and ways to leverage our library of CAD models. More to come here for sure.

Octopart:

In March 2023, UltraLibrarian will join the Nexar platform as a partner with their CAD models, which will make the CAD models accessible in Altium Designer via the Nexar API. How will this new integration help the Octopart and Altium users?

Chris:

Integrations like this are great because they reduce friction for our users. We are always looking for ways to make our data and content easily accessible in context. We think this integration will really help Altium users leverage our models to their fullest extent.

Octopart:

What is something you would want Octopart users to know about Ultra Librarian?

Chris:

Three things:

1. It is Free! Many people are still shocked by this, but it is true. For our engineering users the models are free, so please give it a try.
2. We take requests. Our team has been working really hard on our request process and are averaging pretty fast turn times, so even if we don’t have your model yet, it doesn’t mean we can’t build it for you quickly.
3. If you are an IC/Component manufacturer and we don’t currently have models for your parts we would love to work with you. Our goal is to eliminate the library creation bottleneck for as many engineers as we can and would love to work to make your parts part of that vision.

Whether you are a new user or seasoned expert to Octopart and Ultra Librarian, the value in uniting these tools is clear. This partnership gives you access to free actionable part data to ease the design process and streamline procurement. Try it out here and see what we are talking about!