Moderator edit: this post was in another thread where it hijacked another 3rd party effort. This was also in large font, boldface, which is distracting. It also is about a closed source commercial product. We accept talking about those in the forum, but it can also considered to be spam. I modified the message and moved it to a new thread. The community can decide if this kind of post is allowed.
Hi everyone,
I’m the creator of KiCad Parts – a tool designed exactly to address the challenge of transferring complete and accurate component information from distributors like Mouser, Digi-Key, Farnell, and others into your KiCad libraries and projects.
What is KiCad Parts?
KiCad Parts is an AI-powered service that can instantly extract comprehensive component specifications, ratings, packages, datasheets, and all relevant metadata from any supplier website. With just one click you get a fully defined symbol and part, complete with all the fields (Name, Description, Manufacturer, Mfr. No., Datasheet links, etc.) you need for your schematic or BOM. Everything is organized with consistent naming and clean library structure.
How does it help your workflow?
Instead of manually copying fields or writing custom scripts, you can generate KiCad libraries or import components directly into your existing ones. KiCad Parts can also export part data to JSON/CSV, supporting advanced workflows and BOM management. The system is built to understand datasheets and supplier pages, so it intelligently translates all the important details you’d want in your schematic.
Key advantages:
Works seamlessly with hundreds of suppliers (Mouser, Digi-Key, Arrow, Farnell, LCSC, and more).
No need to modify KiCAD itself or write/maintain scripts.
Saves significant time by automating hours of manual data entry into a quick, one-click process.
If your pain point is the manual, error-prone transfer of verified part details into KiCAD, give KiCad Parts a try! Would love to get feedback or suggestions from fellow engineers and KiCAD users.
Find more details or try it out at: kicadparts.com.
I have not actually tried kicadparts.com so these questions may have been easily answered if I was not so lazy. But I am, so here they are:
Under your plan features, it lists “Extract from Datasheets and PDFs (coming soon)”. I assumed this would be central to your product offering. Exactly what part information is processed by your tool and where does it come from?
Your product page shows an example of a two-pin resistor with an impressive amount of component information. Do you have any examples for more complex parts such as a 100-pin microcontroller or a 1,000-pin FPGA? Does it create the symbol and footprint?
Do you cache parts? Would I get any reduction in price if I requested a part that had already been processed for a previous customer?
Thank you for moving my post and for clarifying the forum guidelines. I sincerely apologize if my original message appeared to hijack another thread or distracted from that ongoing discussion. That was not my intention - I’m genuinely interested in contributing to the community and wanted to introduce KiCad Parts as a resource that might benefit fellow users. I will be more mindful of forum etiquette in the future.
To answer the questions:
What part information is processed and where does it come from?
KiCad Parts extracts detailed component information - such as Name, Description, Manufacturer, Manufacturer Part Number, Distributors, Ratings, Package, Datasheet links and many more (depending on what’s available) - directly from major supplier websites (Mouser, Digi-Key, Farnell, Arrow, LCSC, etc.). The focus is on extracting structured data available on these sites. Data extraction from PDF datasheets is in development and will be added soon to allow even broader support.
What types of parts are supported, and does it create the symbol and footprint?
At this early stage, the tool currently supports Resistors, Capacitors, and Inductors. Support for more complex parts, such as microcontrollers and ICs, is under development and not yet available. The current implementation aims to automate common passive components, and feedback is very welcome to help prioritize what’s next.
How does part availability and pricing work?
Parts are not cached - they are always fetched from supplier sources at the time of request to ensure that all information is as up-to-date as possible.
This is a very early stage of the product, and the main goal right now is to understand the community’s needs and adapt accordingly. The product will be developed further if there is enough interest in it. If anyone has specific requests or requirements, I’d be very happy to hear them.
From a security perspective I am wary about installing a unknown browser extension. What information does the extension have access to? Where is this data uploaded to? Is the data deleted after use?
Thanks for asking! KiCad Parts only accesses information from the supplier or datasheet pages you choose to extract from, and sends that (publicly available) data to our server for processing by underlying LLMs, our own algorithms and then generating your requested KiCad files. The components you extract are kept in the database for your future use.
It’s worth mentioning the extension is also subject to Google’s extension security policies and verification process, ensuring strict privacy and security standards are met.
Also, you can find our up-to-date terms&conditions and privacy policy at https://kicadparts.com/terms and https://kicadparts.com/policy.
Here is the example of the only task when I use distributors websites:
You have 12…24V supply while your circuits need 3V3 / 400mA.
Task is: select the IC to use.
It should:
meet specified requirements,
need not to many external parts (integrated switch instead of external diode is rationale if not too expensive),
be popular (relatively big quantity in stock) allowing you to believe it will not disappear in next few years,
be offered by many distributors,
have rationale price.
When selecting you should have in mind that if you find very cheap and popular IC offering 3V3/3A than it will have high internal current limit so to avoid choke saturation in all conditions you will have to use much bigger choke. So selecting more expensive IC but offering only 500mA can be rationale.
Bigger choke is typically more expansive. Extra PCB space is also not free.
Processes like this take me more than 95% of time spend on new parts. It also requires detailed analyse of potentially selected ICs datasheets to see if its use is simple or will take you then more time (if part for example need careful feedback compensation design to ensure stability).
After part is selected making then a symbol and footprint is a simple matter not requiring too much mental (AI or human I) effort.
If you plan to use AI on distributor websites then the task to automate is selecting component and not making its symbol.
Thank you for the detailed description of your workflow - this is extremely valuable feedback! I completely agree - for most engineers, the real challenge is selecting the right component based on electrical requirements, performance, supply stability, and other design tradeoffs - not just creating the schematic symbol or footprint.
KiCad Parts is focused right now on making the transfer of detailed part information as seamless as possible, but I absolutely recognize the broader context you described. Automating or assisting with “design-in” decisions and helping evaluate tradeoffs between ICs, stock status, external part count, and long-term availability is a complex problem and genuinely where AI can have a major impact for engineers. This kind of multi-criteria selection is something I’m very interested in exploring for future updates.
If you’re open to it, any specific examples of how you approach these choices, or which supplier data and datasheet points are most critical in your process, would be extremely helpful in shaping new features. Thanks again for sharing your perspective - real-world input like this is exactly what will guide how the tool evolves to be most useful!
I am ‘too accurate’ in such tasks and loose sometimes too much time on it.
In the case I described it was first time I planned to use DCDC IC (previously we used linear supplies only).
I have done pre-selection at DigiKey and downloaded resulted list as spreadsheet (over 1000 ICs). Then spend a week organizing this list. Adding new columns, writing there parameters from datasheets, marking some values (electrical, or price or stack) with green background (= OK), others with yellow (= warn) and other with red (= disqualify).
If you will add to KiCad the possibility for fast pre-selecting ICs with specified parameters based on current distributors offer it will be helpful tool.
My another example - select RS485 transceiver (supply 3V3, fail-safe, bandwidth limited, ESD protected, 1/8 load).
That’s a really insightful point and something I’d like to explore further in future versions of the extension. Automating part selection by factoring in not just technical specs, but also real-world considerations like parameters from datasheets, availability, lifecycle, and part count, would be a huge leap forward for design workflows.
I understand that distributor website filtering alone doesn’t fully support this kind of decision-making. It’s often necessary to add extra data to the exported list and evaluate it separately. I’d be interested to know what additional columns or information you typically add and use when making your choices - insights like that will help me see if, and how, I might be able to address this need. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and experience!
Word ‘typically’ is wrong here as for each IC groups different parameters are important. When I read datasheet I am trying to note in my spreadsheet enough parameters to not have to read this datasheet any time more.
Covid supply problems made me for example to add to SOT23 (and SOT23-5) LDOs table the pin-order column to allow me to find substitute just from my table. Until I used table only to select IC for application it was not needed.
To make AI reasonably select ICs you probably first have to have designers in your team.
The best would be to have global selecting ICs tool but (at the moment) I don’t see it as a KiCad tool (next to Calculator).
Thanks for clarifying - that makes sense. You’re right that the key parameters really depend on the specific component and project. I appreciate your examples.