Can't find it when doing a 'net search? Here are some tips:

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

In this thread http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/d...dts-photodiode


The OP was looking for a specific part number on the web and came up blank.

This is often the case when looking for part numbers of any kind. Some of the results will even come up with very odd suggestions, like documents or just plain photos of something totally unrelated.

There is a workaround that will take a bit more time than the milliseconds of a successful search result, but in the case above it took no more than a few minutes to get some answers.

In that specific case, OP tried searching for S04552 which is the part number. Nada.

I ADDED "Photodiode" to that, and the very first result was for a company that sells photodiodes. A quick scroll down on that page had a tab for similar products, a click on that tab brought up a very nice complete list of all the parts available, complete with photos. A little more playing with my mouse found a likely replacement for the part in question. (And a vendor to buy it from too.)

That's all there is to it. I have used this method for years and it has rarely failed to get me results, even on items that have been long discontinued or considered "NLA".

You do have to have some knowledge of what your item is, what it used for, and a bit of skill and judgement to figure out if the replacement will do the job, albeit with some adjustments/modifications, but it will work out in a majority of the cases.

So a touch of patience, some creative search engine wording and finding a site with helpful product listings, and you too can solve many mysteries of the parts hunt world. Bring out your inner Indiana Jones, it is very satisfying.

[Mike Blakesley]

Google is my best buddy in the auto parts business.

In addition to Googling the part number, if you know the brand name of the thing you're searching for plus what the item exactly is, it will almost always give you good results. As a last ditch effort, click on "images" and look at pics -- you can almost always see the thing you need and go from there.

Sometimes a customer will come in wanting an item, but he'll be from Alabama where they call it a "doohickey," where all my life I've called it a "thingamabob," so I just do a search for whatever the customer told me and usually can identify what the hell it is.

[Frank Cox]

Google knows everything.

I read an article quite a while ago that answered the question of where did all of the big three-inch thick third-party books about programming libraries or database setup or how to use your word processor disappear to?

Nobody picks up a book off of the shelf to look under I in the index any more. It's more efficient to type your query into google instead. Nobody buys those books any more so nobody bothers to write them, that market just disappeared.

[Leo Enticknap]

Sometimes a customer will come in wanting an item, but he'll be from Alabama where they call it a "doohickey," where all my life I've called it a "thingamabob,"

There are international differences in different variants of English, too. What I grew up (in England) knowing as a circlip is called a snap ring here. A few weeks ago, I was met with blank, puzzled faces on an install when I announced that I was popping to Lowe's to buy a large jubilee clip to secure a duct on a lamphouse exhaust manifold. Google Images resolved that misunderstanding: here, it's a band clamp. A rawlplug is an anchor, side cutters are dikes (I have occasionally had to explain to non-technical, politically correct types that this is an abbreviation of diagonal pliers), and so on and so forth.

[Mike Blakesley]

I first heard the word "dikes" for the diagonal cutting pliers in the movie "The Towering Inferno." A guy is wanting to cut off a piece of burned wire and says "Hand me those dikes." See, you CAN learn useful information from cheesy 1970s disaster flicks.