Can AI design circuit boards yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#241

Post by ecesena » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 8:09 AM UTC

I did 2 pcbs recently with claude (opus 4.8 and 5). One was simple, the other pretty complex. I’ll open source them at some point.

I did manual routing myself, including most positioning, but claude was super helpful in identifying components, reviewing, etc. It was truly a collaboration.

These are my first pcbs ever, I don’t have any edu at all at making pcbs and was really excited to receive working prototypes. The other pretty amazing thing is that I have py scripts that generate the all the kicad files, as a human I wou look d have never done that (for the cost of building the py files) but I find it pretty neat.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#242

Post by rjh29 » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 8:47 AM UTC

tomhow wrote: post #240

rjh29 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your argument. PCB design is not that hard you can learn how to do it in a month or so. JLCPCB can print (or even assemble) PCBs for next to nothing. Irrespective of AI it seems easier than ever to produce prototypes right now.

Yes, you can learn PCB design “in a month”, design your board and get a batch of prototypes made up by JLCPCB. All of that takes 2-3 months absolute minimum. Then you have to test the boards. You need a lot of costly equipment and expertise to test the board and fix any problems with it. That can take days to weeks of work. Then ordering your next batch of prototypes carries a 2-4 week turnaround time including shipp…

You lost me when you referred to a multimeter as "costly equipment"

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#243

Post by tomhow » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 8:53 AM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #242

tomhow wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can learn PCB design “in a month”, design your board and get a batch of prototypes made up by JLCPCB. All of that takes 2-3 months absolute minimum. Then you have to test the boards. You need a lot of costly equipment and expertise to test the board and fix any problems with it. That can take days to weeks of work. Then ordering your next batch of prototypes carries a 2-4 week turnaround time including shipp…

You lost me when you referred to a multimeter as "costly equipment"

I don’t know why you need to be snarky. I’ve been living this for over a decade with engineers with decades of experience who have done some of the most advanced electronics work imaginable (satellites, military drones).

To test and rework a surface-mount PCB, you may need:

- logic analyzer or oscilloscope;

- microscope;

- high precision soldering equipment/ability;

- solder paste and oven;

- cutting equipment to cut through 4-6 PCB layers and connect tracks with hair-width wire;

- Years/decades of education and experience to understand what to look for and what to do when you find a problem.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#244

Post by rjh29 » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 8:59 AM UTC

tomhow wrote: post #243

rjh29 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me when you referred to a multimeter as "costly equipment"

I don’t know why you need to be snarky. I’ve been living this for over a decade with engineers with decades of experience who have done some of the most advanced electronics work imaginable (satellites, military drones). To test and rework a surface-mount PCB, you may need: - logic analyzer or oscilloscope; - microscope; - high precision soldering equipment/ability; - solder paste and oven; - cutting equipment to cut…

If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts and that is 30 usd.

I am assuming 2 layer - 6 layer PCBs are very specialised (e.g. drones)

The reason I'm being snarky is because it feels like you don't know what you're talking about. I know you're a mod so ban me or we but that's the impression I got.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#245

Post by tomhow » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:23 AM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #244

tomhow wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why you need to be snarky. I’ve been living this for over a decade with engineers with decades of experience who have done some of the most advanced electronics work imaginable (satellites, military drones). To test and rework a surface-mount PCB, you may need: - logic analyzer or oscilloscope; - microscope; - high precision soldering equipment/ability; - solder paste and oven; - cutting equipment to cut…

If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts and that is 30 usd. I am assuming 2 layer - 6 layer PCBs are very specialised (e.g. drones) The reason I'm being snarky is because it feels like you don't know what…

It’s a low move to suggest that I would ban you over a substantive disagreement in a discussion. I wouldn’t last a day in this job if I misused power like that.

> If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts and that is 30 usd.

This is obviously at the extreme low end of the amount of experience and cost/quality of equipment you need to do serious work. Decent oscilloscopes or logic analyzers alone are several hundred dollars, and I didn’t even mention a programmer module, which is $500+ for a licensed J-Link. And you need to be a proficient C programmer.

> I am assuming 2 layer - 6 layer PCBs are very specialised (e.g. drones)

I am talking about 4-6 layer multi-MCU boards for reading from multiple different types of environmental sensors, connecting to multiple different network types (Bluetooth, cellular, satellite) and supporting multiple different power options (lithium battery, 12V DC, USB, solar). Painstakingly minimized power consumption, redundant data storage. Analogue front end for impedance readings of legacy soil moisture sensors. It’s a lot to get right together and to all work reliably in outdoor/remote contexts. But plenty of products that could be useful to reasonably large numbers of people (e.g. advanced home automation/robotics) would need to be comparably sophisticated.

Elsewhere in the thread you’ve written:

> PCB design is not that hard. People trying to offload this to AI are also unwilling or unable to put in the work to actually diagnose issues and finish the project.

This is a dismissive value judgement against others whose circumstances you don’t know about. It’s clearly hard, relative to other kinds of technology work (web/desktop software etc), and not worth it if you can’t get to volume production and sales.

So, sure, you can learn simple PCB design and get a simple 2-layer board in your hands in a month. Degree-qualified electronics engineers and companies obviously exist to provide the rest of the capabilities needed to get a serious product built and all the way to market and volume sales.

It’s clearly not always as effortless as you’re making it out to be in order to justify the sneer.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#246

Post by tdeck » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 9:54 AM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #239

I'm still cold on this for two reasons 1. PCB review subreddit gets posts from people who use Claude to design the whole thing with 3D renders. Looks amazing. But uses auto router and 20 connections are left open. Claude said they needed to be fixed manually but the user didn't even read, just posted the whole GitHub and expected volunteers to fix it 2. Another project used Claude to design the PCB. After assembly th…

At a certain point, it must be cheaper to just hire someone remotely to route the PCB than to burn through Claude credits on it.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#247

Post by varispeed » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 10:02 AM UTC

SequoiaHope wrote: post #214

varispeed wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will it improve already routed board? I have one done ages ago. Works fine, but RAM can only do roughly a half bandwidth because of poorly laid traces. Could I tell AI to reroute them according to best practices?

Ya it can

sweet

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#248

Post by foldr » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

rjh29 wrote: post #244

tomhow wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why you need to be snarky. I’ve been living this for over a decade with engineers with decades of experience who have done some of the most advanced electronics work imaginable (satellites, military drones). To test and rework a surface-mount PCB, you may need: - logic analyzer or oscilloscope; - microscope; - high precision soldering equipment/ability; - solder paste and oven; - cutting equipment to cut…

If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts and that is 30 usd. I am assuming 2 layer - 6 layer PCBs are very specialised (e.g. drones) The reason I'm being snarky is because it feels like you don't know what…

As tomhow points out, you are likely going to need more than just a multimeter. However, the hard part isn't whipping up a board that's 90% of the way there; it's the last 10%. I'm currently on revision ~11 of a hobby project which is far less complex than anything tomhow is talking about (4 layer PCB, 8-bit microcontroller, one analogue sensor circuit). Even the first revision of the board 'worked' for the most part, so I'm clearly not totally incompetent. It's just that the kind of polish that takes you a day or two of iteration if you're designing a web frontend can take months (or years, if you're working in your spare time) when you're constrained by manufacturing lead time and the need to test a physical object. There's a huge gap between "Yay! LED flashes!" and a marketable niche consumer product. Even just successfully putting the bloody thing in a box can require a lot of trial and error.

The firmware is not to be underestimated either. In my case that's about 6000 lines of C. That doesn't sound like much, but writing, testing and updating C code targeting an 8-bit microcontroller is a whole different ball game to writing generic application code. The time investment per line is vastly higher. (In fairness, choosing an EFM8 instead of an 32-bit ARM part was probably a mistake on my part.)

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#249

Post by bsder » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 12:21 PM UTC

tomhow wrote: post #232

varenc wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think big things are coming for this world and by and large they are not ready for it. With regard to PCB design, I'm curious if can you add more color to how the world isn't ready for this in particular? I don't think I quite grasp all the ramifications of AI becoming PCB design experts.

I can speak from experience here (I’ve been around small-scale electronics design/manufacturing for decades via my father’s business and was hands-on with it on an ag-IoT project for about 10 years). The limiting factor in electronics/PCB development and manufacturing isn’t engineering expertise (there are plenty of sufficiently competent electronics engineers in the world, especially in Asia), nor parts/materials or…

Unfortunately, my experience has been that it's the endless cycling with customer requirements that takes all the time.

The hardware is generally manageable quickly for me. Even th firmware isn't terrible.

And then you deploy it.

And the customer realizes it needs to do Q and that they asked it to do X and it doesn't need to do that and we need to take another $0.50 out of the BOM and ...

And then 4 years pass and you still don't have any real revenue.

There is a reason why so many places demand NRE of $1 million minimum and THEN they'll talk about designing your project.

The big gap isn't scaling. It's the scaling PATH. You need to have a viable and profitable path all along AS you scale from tens to thousands to millions. And those projects are VERY rare.

See: BeatBuddy for interesting post mortem and note that AI wouldn't really have helped them much at all.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#250

Post by rjh29 » Sun, Sep 06, 2026, 6:06 PM UTC

tomhow wrote: post #245

rjh29 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts and that is 30 usd. I am assuming 2 layer - 6 layer PCBs are very specialised (e.g. drones) The reason I'm being snarky is because it feels like you don't know what…

It’s a low move to suggest that I would ban you over a substantive disagreement in a discussion. I wouldn’t last a day in this job if I misused power like that. > If you made the PCB then you should be well placed to fix issues with it. You don't need years of experience , you have the schematic. A microscope (if you need it) is 40 USD. A logic analyser is 10 USD. Solder paste and hot air is only for specific parts a…

I agree with you, high frequency is a totally different domain. But for the majority of projects, you don't need to buy special equipment. It's very accessible and PCBs are super cheap to print nowadays.

I am definitely bitter (and biased) because I frequent a PCB review subreddit and increasingly people show up with zero knowledge expecting people to review their AI-generated projects for free.