RS Components’ online engineering community continues its rapid growth

RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, a global multi-channel provider of industrial and electronic products and solutions, today announced that its DesignSpark online engineering community has grown to more than 750,000 members.

DesignSpark was launched in 2010 to provide design engineers and students around the globe with free tools, resources and content to help them to remove barriers, save time and turn their ideas into reality.

“We would like to say a huge thank you to every single member of the DesignSpark community,” said Mike Bray, Vice President of DesignSpark. “There is a great feeling of togetherness within the community and it is great to see how engineers are able to support each other to achieve amazing things with the help of our tools and resources.

“Since day one, the aim of RS has been to give something back to the electronics industry through DesignSpark by providing free professional tools and resources for engineers around the world. We are proud to see the sustained rapid growth of DesignSpark and are committed to further enhancing our platform for the growing user base.”

During the nine years since it launched, RS has continued to improve the functionality and range of resources available through the DesignSpark ecosystem. This has resulted in a large increase in new members, with more than 35% of DesignSpark’s current membership having joined over the past two years.

Registering on DesignSpark is completely free of charge, with all members gaining instant access to:

• DesignSpark PCB, a professional-grade schematic-capture and PCB design software package
• DesignSpark Mechanical, an advanced 3D CAD tool based on direct modelling techniques
• DesignSpark Electrical, a fully specified electrical CAD package for the design of control panel, machinery and electrical systems

PCB Part Library, a huge library of schematic symbols and PCB footprints, which are compatible for all leading PCB software packages including Altium, Zuken, Mentor Graphics, Cadence, Target, Pulsonix, Eagle and DesignSpark PCB

3D Model Library, thousands of 3D models available to use in CAD designs

DesignSpark Toolbox App, the must-have Android and iOS app for engineers, including 27 calculations tools, comparison tables, news, projects and much more

Zerynth Studio, the middleware for IoT, which enables the most popular 32-bit microcontrollers to be programmed in Python or C/Python and connect to the top cloud platforms

Obsolescence Manager, a tool enabling engineers and purchasing professionals to monitor and review the lifecycle status of products within a bill of materials and select alternatives

In addition to free tools and resources, DesignSpark provides a platform for members to share their projects and opinions, and connect with other engineers and students.

To celebrate this milestone of 750,000 members, DesignSpark ran a competition during January to win an engineering bundle worth more than £750, made up of products available from RS. The winner was DesignSpark member Nick Brown.

To find out more, or to join DesignSpark, visit: www.designspark.com