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Can AI design circuit boards yet?

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Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#251

Post by so-cal-schemer »

iopapa wrote: post #32
AdriaanvRossum wrote: post #4

I know a startup [1] that tries to accomplish this. [1] https://www.schematik.io/

Love what samuel and his team are building over in the Netherlands! Always thought it would be fun if there was a more beginner friendly version of atopile [1]. [1] https:/atopile.io/

Cool! Looks like a company that grew out of §3.3.4 of SICP. Hardware oriented NixOS and GUIX users should be very interested in this: declarative PCB designs.

3.3.4 A Simulator for Digital Circuits

https://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/3_002e3.xhtml#g_t3_00...

3.3.5 Propagation of Constraints

https://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/3_002e3.xhtml#g_t3_00...

2.1.4 Extended Exercise: Interval Arithmetic

https://sarabander.github.io/sicp/html/2_002e1.xhtml#g_t2_00...

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#253

Post by NegativeLatency »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #118
NegativeLatency wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, is there any kind of community yet?

Moltbook; it also seems like OpenAI is experimenting with the agents communicating via wiki on topics like these.

For the 68k computer not ai stuff

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#254

Post by SequoiaHope »

stavros wrote: post #204
SequoiaHope wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The designs are in Kicad format, and the Kicad APIs are useful for Claude to work with. I would say that right now this involves a lot of knowledge about PCB design to do well, or for more detailed designs. However you might research how to design board for fabrication at JLCPCB and try something simple. Eg make a board with only LEDs in some pretty pattern and make it so you solder a raspberry pi Pico 2 to the board…

I'd like the AI to do the schematic for me, as I always worry I've missed some decoupling capacitor or something. I can do the routing myself (I like routing). It would also be good if the AI could fill in all the LCSC identifiers for assembly. Is that doable nowadays?

Yes! They’re good at reading data sheets and finding things to add, locating LCSC parts, and making sure they’re connected in the schematic. They don’t always make a pretty schematic but they can be convinced to make the look a bit better than their default attempts will produce.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#255

Post by SequoiaHope »

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"

At the robotics lab I work with it’s not uncommon for a piece of electronics to require a multi thousand dollar voltmeter, because they need to measure precisely extremely small voltages. We have a bunch of these in our lab for example: https://www.tek.com/en/products/keithley/digital-multimeter/...

Your series of comments in this thread frankly demonstrate a lack of understanding of what electrical engineering is. Yes if you want to make glowing LEDs then a multimeter and other cheap equipment are all you need, and you might be able to learn that in a month. But electrical engineering is so much deeper than that. Trouble comes when you have things like high power circuits right next to sensitive high speed signals. Eg a compact drone motherboard could be driving potentially hundreds of watts of switching currents right next to high speed camera sensor data streams.

There’s countless examples of what can make electrical engineering hard. If you don’t understand, don’t argue with people online - listen to people with experience and seek to understand why without challenging what surprises you. It’s all very interesting if you want to learn it.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#256

Post by SequoiaHope »

peter_retief wrote: post #170
SequoiaHope wrote: post #103

I have 15+ years of PCB design experience. Mostly hobby stuff but a fair amount of processional work. Kilowatt range brushless motor controllers, basic RF stuff, lots of microcontroller stuff. I had Fable design an LED earring. Rechargeable coin cell, RP2350 cpu, IMU, 45 addressable LEDs. It made two mistakes - missed the through holes on the coin cell holder footprint and made the center pad too small. I was able to…

It is very hard work and with multilayer boards and surface mount components it is not really a hobby for me anymore, maybe with AI it can be again?

In this case it’s not AI that helps its full service board fab and assembly shops like JLCPCB. It’s so cheap to order fully assembled boards there I don’t bother assembling mine at home anymore. Bonus is you don’t need to mess with tiny components. You can put a 1x1mm 4 pin BGA on there and they will happily solder it for you.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#257

Post by tomhow »

rjh29 wrote: post #250
tomhow wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough, thanks for the reply and for understanding. I can understand that must be frustrating.

I actually think another benefit of AI is that it can make it more realistic for people to self-educate and get further towards getting devices working without needing free help from forums. How they get help when they get stuck, without pestering forums like yours for free help is an interesting challenge.

I still think the biggest upside of AI in electronics is for people who are experienced and competent, being able to get the laborious design/layout work done more quickly, get errors found sooner, get their designs right in fewer iterations, and get feature-rich firmware written and debugged faster. If true, that alone can mean more high quality electronics products hitting the market. That’s the point I was making. Nothing to do with newbies freeloading off experienced engineers on forums.

Thanks for the discussion.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#258

Post by extralongdivisi »

lefra wrote: post #149
extralongdivisi wrote: post #97

Very limited study. A lot of datasheets are inaccessible without signing an NDA. Even if you're a VC-backed enterprise, some unnamed chip vendors will tell you to pound sand if you're less than 8 figures of annual revenue. Worse, many recommendations in datasheets were written in the 80s, overkill for many applications, or completely wrong and won't be updated until an errata is published 6 months later. Given curren…

> A lot of datasheets are inaccessible without signing an NDA Only for very high-end stuff, where just designing the board around the chip needs a team of engineers.

Not necessarily true, most recently I was working with an USB 3.1 chip that anyone can buy off DigiKey, but I had to call contacts at 4 seperate companies just to get firmware to make superspeed work. We werr just too small of a fish to make the chip vender care.

This is becoming more true as a larger percentage of hardware infrastructure is occupied by the datacenter economy.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#259

Post by extralongdivisi »

edg5000 wrote: post #146
extralongdivisi wrote: post #97

Very limited study. A lot of datasheets are inaccessible without signing an NDA. Even if you're a VC-backed enterprise, some unnamed chip vendors will tell you to pound sand if you're less than 8 figures of annual revenue. Worse, many recommendations in datasheets were written in the 80s, overkill for many applications, or completely wrong and won't be updated until an errata is published 6 months later. Given curren…

What kind of chips are you talking about? I guess most ARM SoCs and maybe RAM/ROM ICs?

My most recent experiences have been those chips, yes. Re: my point about doing novel things.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#260

Post by stavros »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #254
stavros wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like the AI to do the schematic for me, as I always worry I've missed some decoupling capacitor or something. I can do the routing myself (I like routing). It would also be good if the AI could fill in all the LCSC identifiers for assembly. Is that doable nowadays?

Yes! They’re good at reading data sheets and finding things to add, locating LCSC parts, and making sure they’re connected in the schematic. They don’t always make a pretty schematic but they can be convinced to make the look a bit better than their default attempts will produce.

Excellent, thank you! I'm definitely adding an LLM review/assembly step then!
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