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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

#151

Post by cmos »

polalavik wrote: post #92
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…

I was thinking the same thing (I'm an EE by day). I think this idea is very cool, but since the dawn of time schematics and PCB layout have always been visual because you are actually building a physical thing. Its easy to see hardware bugs in schematics visually. However, it might be very hard to track it in code, unless the code is one day smart enough to find the bugs for you. You have to hold more context in your…

I agree - also an EE - and I think it is similar to 'programming music' packages like Sonic Pi. If you are used to reading and writing standard music coding will be an odd and difficult change. Right now we have a comfort for seeing the layout and such physically, and since that is how we manufacture it this is going to be an output anyway, but there is some future world where it is all put together automatically within the requirements we specify and we have an entirely new way of designing circuit boards. Each component would come with not only a footprint but an array of basic design implementations that would mix and match with others.. autorouting on steroids of sorts.

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

#152

Post by Timot05 »

bsza wrote: post #147
nerpderp82 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a regular OpenSCAD user, I wouldn't bring it up as a good solution for anything. It exists, you can solve problems with it, but it isn't a good design. It should just be a library in a real language.

> It should just be a library in a real language The last thing I want to worry about is having malware in an M5 bolt.

From a security perspective, it does help that ato is not executable!

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

#153

Post by napowderly »

Hasz wrote: post #149

For context, I am very familiar with KiCAD and somewhat familiar with Eagle. I think KiCAD gets a lot of things right. Some of the broken things: parts management (There is no central repo, a la LVFS, where I can get a part/pinout/3d model to easily import) export process (feels kludgey, although some manufactures take the native KiCAD files) multiple users, same project -- it's hard to put artifacts into git and mer…

Indeed, we think the community aspect of this is super important. Being able to reuse high quality work confidently is very nice. Our export is pretty cool already! We build outputs in CI on a server, ready to drag and drop directly into JLC, including BOM and PNP files.

Being able to use git was our fundamental motivator, we all previously worked a big companies and found it maddening that we couldnt work in parallel on projects without breaking everything.

On parts specs, for sure, we currently capture all the data you would see on JLCs website. We do have dielectric and voltage ratings for caps. Eventually we plan to scrape a bunch of datasheets to build out a high quality dataset, I am very excited about this!

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

#154

Post by demondemidi »

jhallenworld wrote: post #134

Why not use Verilog or SystemVerilog? module blinky ( input v3v3, input gnd ); wire led; wire led_r; rp2040 u1 ( .vcc (v3v3), .gnd (gnd), .gpioa15 (led) ); resistor #(.VALUE("220"), .TOLERANCE("5%"), .PART("ERJH2CF1R10X"), .SIZE("1206")) r1 ( .a (led), .b (led_r) ); led #(.PART("WP7113SURDK14V")) d1 ( .anode (v3v3), .cathode (led_r) ); endmodule Use Verilog parameters for all of the part information you might want, l…

I think a lot of young hackers just don't have the breadth of experience to know what has come before them, or what is in common use. OP has reinvented synthesis, but poorly.

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

#155

Post by echoangle »

Timot05 wrote: post #143
Taig wrote: post #135

`import Y from X` is a terrible language design decision, established by the JavaScript ecosystem. It should be along the lines of `import X.Y` or `from X import Y` so that autocomplete tools can assist you.

Aspects of the python lexer and parser implementation were borrowed from python, which is partly why we ended up here. I do agree though.

Python does from x import y though.

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

#156

Post by andrejk »

This looks really cool. I need to dig through some more examples before I'd take anything I say without a massive grain of salt. :)

Maybe I've been writing too much React and Android Compose UI lately, but instead of a declarative structure, have you considered a functional structure? That seems to be a create way to build composable components and add enough programmability (e.g. loops, conditionals) and keep a nice one-way flow down the line.

Something like

``` import {Resistor, Signal, Ohms, Float} ...

def VoltageDivider(totalR: Ohms, ratio: Float, signal1: Signal, signal2: Signal, signalOut: Signal) { r1 = Resistor(totalR/ratio, signal1, signalOut) r2 = Resistor(totalR(1-ratio),signal2,signalOut) }

def MyBoard() { s1 = Signal() s2 = Signal() s3 = Signal() div1 = VoltageDivider(totalR: 100_000, ratio:.33, signal1: s1, signal2: s2, signalOut: s3)

}

It's similar to what you have but maybe a bit more of a programming language than a declarative format. The trade-off is that tooling support gets harder as you add some basic language features, but the upside is a more powerful language.

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

#157

Post by vrtnis »

napowderly wrote: post #150
vrtnis wrote: post #145

Congrats on the launch! Couple of quick questions: Are there any initiatives or resources planned for educational institutions to adopt atopile? Outside of GitHub, are there specific areas or tasks where you’re seeking community or volunteer contributions? Thanks!

Thanks! We definitely want to get involved on the education side. Currently we are super focused on building out the tool and growing a community around it. We are looking for people to use our tool and give feedback on what works and what sucks. Would be excited to chat about what you would want to see from an education standpoint!

cool, i believe this is a scenario where targeted educational/univ. chats could help further enterprise trials (or early constructive feedback). would be great to chat more on discord/email!

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

#158

Post by napowderly »

andrejk wrote: post #156

This looks really cool. I need to dig through some more examples before I'd take anything I say without a massive grain of salt. :) Maybe I've been writing too much React and Android Compose UI lately, but instead of a declarative structure, have you considered a functional structure? That seems to be a create way to build composable components and add enough programmability (e.g. loops, conditionals) and keep a nice…

For sure, we have been pretty focused on the low level part of the language, I think it will be interesting to see how our language evolves as we are able to abstract away more of the low level connectivity and configuration. I think eventually we will end up building something like a python library on top of ato to get the best of both worlds.

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

#159

Post by mawildoer »

demondemidi wrote: post #154
jhallenworld wrote: post #134

Why not use Verilog or SystemVerilog? module blinky ( input v3v3, input gnd ); wire led; wire led_r; rp2040 u1 ( .vcc (v3v3), .gnd (gnd), .gpioa15 (led) ); resistor #(.VALUE("220"), .TOLERANCE("5%"), .PART("ERJH2CF1R10X"), .SIZE("1206")) r1 ( .a (led), .b (led_r) ); led #(.PART("WP7113SURDK14V")) d1 ( .anode (v3v3), .cathode (led_r) ); endmodule Use Verilog parameters for all of the part information you might want, l…

I think a lot of young hackers just don't have the breadth of experience to know what has come before them, or what is in common use. OP has reinvented synthesis, but poorly.

Not even quite synthesis yet! We're well aware there's quite a lot out there that's fairly analogous - but nothing that's quite translated to the space, despite a few efforts as pointed out above.

There's a few parts we think that are behind that, but one is similar to python's/Guido's "code is read more than it's written", so we're attempting to address that!

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

#160

Post by mawildoer »

addaon wrote: post #112
napowderly wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, we found that to start with something useful from day 0 we needed to be able to completely represent any possible circuit. Starting by just providing a cleaner way to write out a netlist is just the beginning. We are working to add an equations solver to our compiler over the next few weeks, which will allow you to do things like set the ratio of a divider and total resistance, then have the solver pick opt…

Get even a basic equation solver in there and I'll be a user! Have it handle units properly and I'll be a happy user. Have it be able to handle both worst-case and RSS tolerance stackups and I'll be in love.

We're also super stoked about getting topology and equations together in the same file (and even code-base!)

The equation solver is soon on our roadmap: https://atopile.io/roadmap/#language-features

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