Note

Components availability is volatile, meaning they may become out of stock by the time you are creating the digikey order, so expect to find alternatives in the process. Reach out to EE leads if you find yourself spending too much time on this.

Related Resources

• Internal Purchase Protocol

Steps

1. Create a post in #ops-purchase-reqs in discord and gain approvals from EE leads or directors.

2. Generate BOM from Altium Designer

   1. Choose the build variant (or any variant you wish to use during assembly)

      Open

      

   2. Click Reports → Bill of Materials

      Open

      

   3. Change board quantity

   4. Click export

*note, increasing production quantity does not multiply the quantity of components in the exported BOM file as of 24.7.2 for some reason, so you may need to do this manually in the excel file

3. Open the file in excel and make a column for attrition %

   1. you will want extra passives in case you lose any during the assembly process

      1. in every row for passives, make the associated attrition % 25

   2. do not change the quantity of ICs, these are expensive and easier to handle, order only as many as you need

4. Upload BOM file to Digikey

   1. Login to or Create a personal Digikey account

      1. Go to your profile on the top right hand side>select lists on the dropdown menu

          

      2. upload the .xl file

      3. choose which columns to import, you only need Manufacturer Part Number, Quantity 1, and Attrition % - ensure these are set to the correct columns, you can select “skip” for the rest

          

      4. Next, set your list preferences to these settings

      5. hit “finish upload” once you’re done

      6. Verify everything is correct, then hit “add to cart”

          

      7. If the attrition % caused a quantity that is not a multiple of 5, round it up to the nearest value.

      8. Cross reference with the original excel sheet to make sure digikey uploaded everything properly. (you can copy paste and ctrl+F and check if they have the same amount of entries)

      9. If you see this:

         Then you may actually be able to get a cheaper price by buying more and it is worth clicking “view options”. Parts are often cheaper when you buy in bulk and sometimes, for example, it can be cheaper to buy 10 of an item then 3 of them.

         Make sure you pick what has the cheapest extended price, which is the total cost of all of the items. In some cases, buying 10 items may give a cheaper unit price but since you are buying 10 of them, the extended price is still more. This is not worth it if we only needed 3 parts anyways. If you select the wrong list preferences in step iv, you might not see these recommendations so make sure you do that right.

5. If order is under $100, combine it with another digikey order to get free shipping

6. If order is over $100, follow the WEEF procurement process outlined in Internal Purchase Protocol

   1. Remind the university’s finance coordinator to apply student discount

   2. Instead of listing each individual item, link the digikey cart you created.

      1. hit “share copy” then copy the link and include it in your email.

          

      2. Example email:

Hello,

I hope this email finds you well.

WARG’s electrical team would like to order:

This digikey cart: [Digikey Cart Link] / $XXX.XX

The total cost of this order is $XXX.XX. Digikey also offers a 10% student discount that can be applied. Please bill to [Valid Account from Ledgers]. Please let us know the purchase’s final cost, as some items may change prices from the time this email is sent to when the purchase is made.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best,

[Your Name]