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Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

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Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#61

Post by ukd1 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #46
mlsu wrote: post #40

One thing that surprised me when moving from mechanical CAD to EDA programs is the lack of "relations." I have not used the more professional tools, just KiCad, but it surprised me that there are not more variables, relations, constraints, subassemblies, for things like buck converters and these types of things. KiCad has 'netclasses' which let you set trace widths, but it's all manual, same with the design rules che…

look at OpenSCAD, it's a scripting language to generate models. I used this a lot to generate subpieces and build off of that. easy as saying Bolt("M5", 1.5) or something

Ya OpenSCAD is great for in/cross project re-usable components.

The only issues I've had is how it outputs circular things for cutting - it does a series of polygons (configurable number), rather than an arc/circular - places like send-cut-send won't accept it, claiming it causes issues with their machines.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#62

Post by napowderly »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #46
mlsu wrote: post #40

One thing that surprised me when moving from mechanical CAD to EDA programs is the lack of "relations." I have not used the more professional tools, just KiCad, but it surprised me that there are not more variables, relations, constraints, subassemblies, for things like buck converters and these types of things. KiCad has 'netclasses' which let you set trace widths, but it's all manual, same with the design rules che…

look at OpenSCAD, it's a scripting language to generate models. I used this a lot to generate subpieces and build off of that. easy as saying Bolt("M5", 1.5) or something

I have used it, I think its great. I am excited to see whole products defined in code.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#63

Post by helpfulmountain »

I think this is a wonderful idea and begins to create a foundation of data richness and interoperability for a very exciting new approach to PCB design, as I commented elsewhere in this thread

However I do want to mention that I think it might be necessary to be able to "cross-compile" to visual schematic format, and back. Or perhaps there is an open schematic tool that can be extended?

The issue is that I think electrical schematics are significantly more familiar to EE types, contain more legible information. Instead of reinventing the wheel there, it'd be nice to see a system that can switch back and forth between text and visual schematic.

How are schematics described as files currently? Is there an open standard? Can it be converted to atopile format, and back?

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#64

Post by Timot05 »

helpfulmountain wrote: post #52
napowderly wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically on the layout section, I have been thinking along the lines of start with sensible 'seed' layouts that users will contribute, then mutate the layouts with a physics driven solver. Imagine links between components as a spring and repulsion forces to model creepage/clearance distances, you could imagine the layout warping into a suitable shape for your board. I am pretty excited to get to this bit.

As someone who just taught themself Kicad to make a simple MIDI controller PCB usi an STM32F4, I was totally blown away, coming from software, how "manual" everything was, how abstruse and arcane. It's quite difficult as a beginner to know that a design is "correct", or perhaps "correct enough", with respect to component placement and EMI. It seems like even top EE who specialize in board design utilize rules of thum…

Thanks for the support!

For the autolayout part, one thing we realized is that it’s very hard for a computer to do a good job at it when there is a lot of implicit requirements that are not baked into the schematics. We are hoping that by capturing those through code, auto layout can be improved.

On the design check, we aren’t doing a lot there for the moment but the comment above also applies: if you have clear requirements in the code, it becomes easier to test if the solution fits those requirement.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#65

Post by napowderly »

mikeortman wrote: post #53

This has sooo much promise, I can't describe how excited I am and will definitely be contributing if I can. This would make it easy to implement a fancy optimizer. Each component tends to have certain acceptable thresholds for their dependencies like input voltages, current limits, external resistor/capacitor/inductor values/ratings, etc. Then, each component could have different implementations. You can have differe…

We have been working on an optimizer for solving components that we will put a post out about soon. But the gist is figuring out which constraints are expensive, for example a precision inductor might be quite expensive, but a precision resistor is comparatively cheap. We can look at where to shift precision in your components to get the desired output for the lowest total cost. We already do a few things like prioritize in stock parts with high availability. I am excited to add more constraints, like board area, multi-sourcing etc.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#67

Post by andrewstuart »

markrages wrote: post #51
andrewstuart wrote: post #41

I'd like to hear the opinion of Lady Ada on this - one of the industries greatest hardware designers.

> one of the industries greatest hardware designers Is this meant sarcastically?

>>Is this meant sarcastically?

No I don't mean it sarcastically, why do you ask? Do you not see Lady Ada as a shining light of the industry?

Lady Ada is one of the industry's greatest hardware designers and I would value her opinion on this.

If you don't know who she is, her name is Limor Fried and she founded AdaFruit.

I don't have current stats but from 2016: Revenue US$45 million (2016)[1] Number of employees 105

Front page of Make Magazine:

https://blog.adafruit.com/2017/05/08/limor-ladyada-fried-on-...

Front page of Wired:

https://www.wired.com/2011/03/wired-magazines-cover-features...

Front page of Smore magazine:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3920

Front page of Hackspace:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/adafruit/40061387915

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#68

Post by voctor »

mawildoer wrote: post #37
voctor wrote: post #35

It reminds me of the Akka Graph DSL[1] [1] https://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/current/stream/stream-graphs.h...

Interesting! Haven't come across it before but those linked `~>` operators do indeed quite familiar. If you're familiar with GraphDSL do you have some elements we should look into?

I've only worked with Akka Graph DSL to build some data pipelines or protocol stacks. And I've loved working with it!

The equivalent of atopile signal would be port with Akka I think. A combination of ports gives us a shape. A source shape is just one OUT port. A flow shape is one IN and one OUT port, etc.

I'm very new to electronics so I don't know if it makes sense, but connecting all these ports with directional arrows was really helpful to understand the data flow.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#69

Post by Timot05 »

helpfulmountain wrote: post #63

I think this is a wonderful idea and begins to create a foundation of data richness and interoperability for a very exciting new approach to PCB design, as I commented elsewhere in this thread However I do want to mention that I think it might be necessary to be able to "cross-compile" to visual schematic format, and back. Or perhaps there is an open schematic tool that can be extended? The issue is that I think elec…

Yeah that’s an interesting aspect. We did implement a viewer very early on. And we then removed it from the project.

What we discovered is that:

- making a visual viewer is a non trivial endeavor. It takes a lot of time but the value add is marginal for an average viewer. - people tend to spend a lot of time making the viewer look good instead of improving the circuit

We think that in the long run, a viewer could be awesome to inspect what is going on or get a general understanding of the circuit. But it’ll be difficult to justify the time spent on it early on in the project.

Re: Show HN: Atopile – Design circuit boards with code

#70

Post by napowderly »

lijok wrote: post #66

Would be good to see a comparison to Verilog

Pretty similar in concept, a few important nuances that come with building boards in the real world. For example dealing with tolerances. The language is definitely an important part of this, but we think alot of the surrounding infrastructure like package managers, CI pipelines and SPICE integration will be critical also.
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