element14 / Newark / Farnell — Component Search, Datasheets & Ordering

Related Skills

Skill	Purpose
kicad	Schematic analysis — extracts MPNs for part lookup
bom	BOM management — orchestrates sourcing across distributors
spice	Uses element14 parametric data for behavioral SPICE models

One API covers three regional storefronts — same catalog, same datasheets, only pricing/stock vary by region:

Storefront	Region	Store ID
Newark	North America	www.newark.com
Farnell	UK / Europe	uk.farnell.com
element14	Asia-Pacific	au.element14.com

For BOM management and export workflows, see bom.

Key Differences from DigiKey/Mouser

• Simple auth — API key as a query parameter, no OAuth flow
• Free API key — register at partner.element14.com, courtesy usage allowance
• Global coverage — same API covers US (Newark), EU (Farnell), APAC (element14)
• Unprotected PDFs — datasheets hosted on farnell.com CDN, download freely with no bot protection
• Datasheet URL in API response — responseGroup=medium includes datasheets[].url

API Credential Setup

1. Register at partner.element14.com/member/register
   • Free account — just username, email, password. No credit card needed.
   • Provides a "courtesy usage allowance" (2 calls/sec, 1,000 calls/day — sufficient for normal use)
2. Register an application — after logging in, go to My API Keys and click "Get API Keys"
   • App name: anything (e.g., "kicad-happy")
   • Type: "Desktop application"
   • Users: "1-10"
   • Commercial: No
   • Advertising: No
   • Check "Issue a new key for Product Search API" → select "Basic" tier
   • Agree to Terms of Service and click "Register Application"
3. Copy your API key — a 24-character alphanumeric string shown on the My API Keys page
4. Set the environment variable ELEMENT14_API_KEY before running the scripts:

   export ELEMENT14_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
   

   If credentials are stored in a central secrets file (e.g., ~/.config/secrets.env), load them first:

   export $(grep -v '^#' ~/.config/secrets.env | grep -v '^$' | xargs)
   

Product Search API

Base URL: https://api.element14.com/catalog/products

All requests use GET with query parameters. Authentication is via callInfo.apiKey.

Search Modes

The term parameter supports three search types:

Mode	Format	Example
Keyword	any:<keywords>	term=any:100nF 0402 X7R
MPN	manuPartNum:<mpn>	term=manuPartNum:GRM155R71C104KA88D
Distributor PN	id:<sku>	term=id:94AK6874

Full Example

GET https://api.element14.com/catalog/products
  ?term=manuPartNum:GRM155R71C104KA88D
  &storeInfo.id=www.newark.com
  &resultsSettings.offset=0
  &resultsSettings.numberOfResults=10
  &resultsSettings.responseGroup=medium
  &callInfo.responseDataFormat=JSON
  &callInfo.apiKey=YOUR_KEY

Response Groups

Group	Fields
small	SKU, displayName, brandName, MPN, attributes
medium	+ datasheets[], prices[], stock
large	+ images, related products, country of origin
prices	Tiered pricing only
inventory	Stock levels by warehouse/region

Response Format

With responseGroup=medium, the response looks like:

{
  "manufacturerPartNumberSearchReturn": {
    "numberOfResults": 5,
    "products": [
      {
        "sku": "94AK6874",
        "displayName": "Murata GRM155R71C104KA88D",
        "translatedManufacturerPartNumber": "GRM155R71C104KA88D",
        "brandName": "Murata Electronics",
        "datasheets": [
          {
            "type": "TechnicalDataSheet",
            "description": "Datasheet",
            "url": "https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/74273.pdf"
          }
        ],
        "prices": [
          {
            "from": 1,
            "to": 9,
            "cost": 0.156
          }
        ],
        "stock": {
          "level": 45000,
          "leastLeadTime": 0,
          "status": 4,
          "statusMessage": "In Stock"
        },
        "attributes": [
          {"attributeLabel": "Capacitance", "attributeUnit": "", "attributeValue": "100nF"},
          {"attributeLabel": "Voltage Rating", "attributeUnit": "V", "attributeValue": "16"}
        ],
        "rohsStatusCode": "YES"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Key fields:

• sku — Newark/Farnell/element14 part number
• translatedManufacturerPartNumber — MPN
• brandName — manufacturer
• datasheets[].url — direct PDF URL (farnell.com CDN, no bot protection)
• datasheets[].type — usually TechnicalDataSheet
• prices[] — tiered pricing with from, to, cost
• stock.level — quantity in stock
• stock.statusMessage — human-readable availability
• attributes[] — parametric specs (label, unit, value)
• rohsStatusCode — RoHS compliance (YES/NO)

Store IDs

Common store IDs for the storeInfo.id parameter:

Store ID	Region
www.newark.com	US (default)
uk.farnell.com	UK
www.farnell.com	EU
au.element14.com	Australia
sg.element14.com	Singapore
in.element14.com	India

Rate Limits

No documented rate limits beyond the courtesy usage allowance. Be respectful — use 0.5s delays between calls.

Filters

Add to query parameters:

• resultsSettings.refinements.filter=rohsCompliant — RoHS parts only
• resultsSettings.refinements.filter=inStock — in-stock only

Pagination

• resultsSettings.offset — starting index (0-based)
• resultsSettings.numberOfResults — max 50 per page
• Only the first 100 results are reliably pageable

Datasheet Download & Sync

element14's farnell.com CDN serves datasheet PDFs directly — no bot protection, no special headers needed. Datasheet URLs come from the API response (datasheets[].url).

Datasheet Directory Sync

Use sync_datasheets_element14.py to maintain a datasheets/ directory alongside a KiCad project. Same workflow and manifest.json format as the DigiKey, Mouser, and LCSC skills.

# Sync datasheets for a KiCad project
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch>

# Preview what would be downloaded
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --dry-run

# Retry previously failed downloads
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --force

# Use a specific store (default: www.newark.com)
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --store uk.farnell.com

# Custom output directory
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> -o ./my-datasheets

# Parallel downloads (3 workers)
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --parallel 3

# Batch mode — sync from a plain MPN list (no KiCad project required)
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py --mpn-list mpns.txt --output ./datasheets

MPN-list batch mode (KH-312) — when you have a list of MPNs but no KiCad project to point at. One MPN per line; blank lines and # comments (full-line and inline) are skipped; generic values are filtered via is_real_mpn() and de-duplicated. Output defaults to ./datasheets/ in the current working directory when --output is omitted. Note: ELEMENT14_API_KEY is checked unconditionally at startup, so --dry-run still requires the env var to be set even though no network calls are made.

The script:

• Runs the kicad schematic analyzer to extract components, MPNs, and distributor PNs
• Accepts any identifier — MPN, Newark/Farnell PN, or other distributor PNs from KiCad symbol properties
• Prefers MPN search (manuPartNum:) for exact match — falls back to keyword search
• Downloads from farnell.com CDN — direct PDF URLs, no bot protection
• Writes manifest.json manifest — same format as DigiKey/Mouser/LCSC skills
• Verifies PDF content — checks MPN, manufacturer, and description keywords
• Rate-limited — 0.5s between API calls (configurable with --delay)
• Saves progress incrementally — safe to interrupt

Single Datasheet Download

Use fetch_datasheet_element14.py for one-off downloads.

# Search by MPN
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py --search "GRM155R71C104KA88D" -o datasheet.pdf

# Search by Newark/Farnell part number
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py --search "94AK6874" -o datasheet.pdf

# Direct URL download
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py "https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/74273.pdf" -o datasheet.pdf

# JSON output
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py --search "GRM155R71C104KA88D" --json

The script:

• OS-agnostic — uses requests → urllib → playwright fallback chain
• Validates PDF headers — rejects HTML error pages
• Falls back to alternative manufacturer sources when element14 URL fails
• Exit codes: 0 = success, 1 = download failed, 2 = search/API error
• Dependencies:
  • pip install requests (recommended; urllib fallback works fine for element14)
  • pip install playwright && playwright install chromium (optional; rarely needed)

Web Search Fallback

If the API is unavailable, search by fetching product pages directly:

https://www.newark.com/search?st=<query>
https://uk.farnell.com/search?st=<query>

Tips

• Use responseGroup=medium — includes datasheets and pricing without the overhead of large
• Use manuPartNum: prefix for exact MPN matches; any: for keyword search
• Cross-reference using translatedManufacturerPartNumber (MPN) across DigiKey/Mouser/LCSC
• Useful for international users where DigiKey/Mouser shipping is expensive