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"Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

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Re: "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

#101

Post by cadamsdotcom »

I see some commenters saying “if you are an expert, the model is a productivity multiplier”

What is being said here is “I can give my model a high quality feedback loop”.

With good simulators and good access to info about latest products etc a novice can also give their model a high quality feedback loop! But they have to build it or source it from somewhere. I’m talking all the right tools to give the model a goal and let it rip.

Once that loop is built the human is out of the loop and the model has the grounding it needs to converge on a solution instead of needing constant prodding.

There’s immense opportunity for experts to create these grounding tools and productise them.

Re: "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

#102

Post by cbdevidal »

cluckindan wrote: post #45
cbdevidal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just this morning I was vibing with Gemini to make a battery-powered stove monitor to sell that I might call "Yes I turned off the stupid stove" :-) Gemini was suggesting the circuit design and of course I'd do the final work myself, but I find vibe-circuit-building to be quite valuable.

Easiest way to get this foolproof would be to put an induction loop around the power cable and use the reading from that as a proxy for on/off state. It would catch any case where the stove is drawing power, irrespective of possible failure modes of the stove itself.

That's the idea

Re: "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

#103

Post by cbdevidal »

robocat wrote: post #100
cbdevidal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just this morning I was vibing with Gemini to make a battery-powered stove monitor to sell that I might call "Yes I turned off the stupid stove" :-) Gemini was suggesting the circuit design and of course I'd do the final work myself, but I find vibe-circuit-building to be quite valuable.

Is your market people with anxiety/OCD about whether they turned off stove? Your idea would be a hard sell to anyone paranoid enough, since they won't trust your monitor. An alternative would be to install a safety key switch or a magnetic safety key. The paranoid can then check they have the key on them when they leave the home (like the lady worried about her hair dryer - see below). Or perhaps a camera facing the…

That's not the target customer I had in mind, but that might be good. Was thinking of those who have elderly forgetful parents, or my wife. Or my son--we were nearly late to church because as we were pulling out of the driveway, "I think I left the stove on." Sigh.

I know there is a market for it, there are several competing products, but none use an inductive loop for easier install.

Re: "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

#104

Post by cbdevidal »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #55
cbdevidal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just this morning I was vibing with Gemini to make a battery-powered stove monitor to sell that I might call "Yes I turned off the stupid stove" :-) Gemini was suggesting the circuit design and of course I'd do the final work myself, but I find vibe-circuit-building to be quite valuable.

monitor home's phases and just learn AI how to spot patterns to identify each device. I think there was a product doing that already..

Yes there is

Re: "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

#105

Post by briHass »

If you want a laugh, ask the LLM to draw the schematic of a basic circuit (like towards the end of a Forrest Mims III book.)

I've been 50/50 with vibe circuits recently. Gemini 2.5 gave me some really wrong designs of an advanced crowbar circuit I was playing with, but recently 3.0 Fast gave me excellent advice on an adjustable load with a hodgepodge of parts.

Re: "Anyone else out there vibe circuit-building?"

#106

Post by DoctorOetker »

dcrazy wrote: post #27

As an AI skeptic, I’ve been brought around to using Claude Code to understand a codebase, like when I need to quickly find where something happens through a tower of abstractions. Crucially, this relies on Claude actually searching my codebase using grep. It’s effectively automated guess and check. I wonder if a SPICE skill would make LLMs safer and more useful in this area. I’m a complete EE newbie, and I am slowly…

problem is that even SPICE has poor default models for transformers etc...
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