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ChatGPT for Hardware Design

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Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#81

Post by arcticbull »

stavros wrote: post #80
arcticbull wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your module maybe have a built-in VRM? The datasheet said the operating voltage range was 2.5-3.6V. A LiPo battery has a nominal voltage of 3.7V and a fully-charged voltage closer to 4.2V. That's definitely out of spec without a VRM.

It doesn't, but it's very tolerant of 4.2. I think the most I've run it with was 5V.

I absolutely believe it works for you, but I wouldn't ship that to customers, and I wouldn't expect what is ostensibly an authoritative reference tool to recommend it at all.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#82

Post by samcheng »

masto wrote: post #41

Opened site. Chat popped up in the corner and started making sound effects. Closed site. I guess it doesn't matter if a few people are annoyed, if the end result of these things is a new increase in conversions. But I wish "don't annoy people" was actually in the product requirements.

uBlock Origin on Firefox hid that annoyance for me.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#84

Post by tonyarkles »

arcticbull wrote: post #81
stavros wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't, but it's very tolerant of 4.2. I think the most I've run it with was 5V.

I absolutely believe it works for you, but I wouldn't ship that to customers, and I wouldn't expect what is ostensibly an authoritative reference tool to recommend it at all.

I’m with you on not shipping out-of-spec designs. Maybe this is a good place for a reverse-polarity protection diode!

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#85

Post by oehtXRwMkIs »

Czarcasm wrote: post #69
fortyseven wrote: post #13

Why on earth would you call this "copilot" when GitHub has already long established that as a name in this space? :I

Github can't monopolize the word "copilot". It's a basic english word to describe someone that is assisting you to steer a vessel/team/project. It's been around for hundreds of years in naval industry, and in aviation since the dawn of flight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Energy#Trademark_prote...

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#86

Post by evancox100 »

arcticbull wrote: post #32
greg wrote: post #4

Engineer on the team here. Some of the interesting challenges of doing ChatGPT for circuit design were: 1) How to communicate the circuit connections to ChatGPT in the text prompt. We ended up just using the standard netlist format. Apparently it knows about netlists from its training data. It also knows about datasheets. 2) How to get the needed accuracy and precision for questions like "calculate the resistance nee…

Out of curiosity, I noticed in the video that it recommended for a voltage regulator either an LM7805 or an LM1117 - either a super inefficient 5V regulator that has no business in new designs, or a 1.2V low-dropout 800mA regulator that is probably not appropriate to the other components it recommended (i.e. an LM7805 -> LM1117 would be 36% efficient at best). It then also recommends a LiPo battery with a nominal 3.7…

I mean the more fundamental problem with the power supply is it recommending a "USB-to-Serial converter for powering the device." (See second example image.)

I'm overall bullish on AI systems but I'm not sure this space has enough detailed context to train. Much if this knowledgeis in-house/proprietary. We'll see how fast these are able to improve over time.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#87

Post by outworlder »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #46
arcticbull wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, I noticed in the video that it recommended for a voltage regulator either an LM7805 or an LM1117 - either a super inefficient 5V regulator that has no business in new designs, or a 1.2V low-dropout 800mA regulator that is probably not appropriate to the other components it recommended (i.e. an LM7805 -> LM1117 would be 36% efficient at best). It then also recommends a LiPo battery with a nominal 3.7…

I find comments similar to yours about ChatGPT all over the internet. I finally took the time to ask that some questions over the last few days. All the answers it gave were mundane and expected from any click bait web site you can find. I Googled the same questions and found similar answers. Some personal questions it refused to answer or give suggestions because "only you can decide" was the response. I'm very susp…

> Which makes me think there is some hype involved.

There's _a lot_ of hype.

It's a good tool if you forget about any "intelligence" and just think of it as a tool. We don't expect search engines to be 'intelligent', we expect them to return results we are interested in, in an efficient manner.

In the case of this and similar tools, it is a text generator. It will generate _something_ based on your input. In many cases, it will make up stuff because it has to generate something. Note how it will not ask follow-up questions to 'understand' you (because it doesn't understand anything). You have to apply judgment and ask the follow up questions yourself.

One thing I found these tools to be useful is to mitigate the "blinking cursor on an empty document" paralysis. I just asked the "Pulumi AI" to generate some code that, while not really correct to my needs, is a good starting point for modification.

If you ask it to generate something from you, other than just a pre-made response that you could google, then it's more useful.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#88

Post by gabereiser »

markwu2001 wrote: post #60
gfodor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been interested in learning how to design PCBs, I wonder if this tech helps constrain the set of things one ought to focus on learning, with the assumption that AI can fill in other areas.

I love teaching PCB design! As with you, I'm also really curious about AI's contributions to learning. My opinion is that the automation of search and execution increases the impact one person can make so more time can be spent on connecting the dots at a higher level. Whether or not education catches up in time is another story haha. It's pretty open ended right now but it's undeniable that a huge educational gap th…

This is what's been holding me back from PCB design. Like, I know the math, but there's forces at play beyond just V1/R1=V2 kinda stuff. I'm really keen to see if an LLM can assist a hobbyist in making sound, quality, designs that aren't going to break his/her wallet when the sheet comes in and none of it works.

About 12 years ago I designed an RF addon board for an RC car (to toggle lights). Even something as simple as switching with NPN transistors looks good on the bench software but when the chips came it didn't work at all. Did I mistakenly ask for PNP? Ugh! I used fritzing at first (still great software) and then upgraded to Eagle. I want to do something beyond Raspberry Pi/Arduino work but not quite ready to design my own radio/motherboard. I know electricity but I don't know why I would need a capacitor/resistor/transformer other than the very basics.

What resources would you recommend since you love to teach PCB design?

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#89

Post by mhb »

gowld wrote: post #43
mhb wrote: post #5

I recently used ChatGPT to find a part. Maybe this was an anomalous result, but it was wrong. Don't know if this will be an issue with your project. Me: Is there a digital to analog converter with an 8V analog range and serial input? CGPT: Yes, there are several digital-to-analog converters (DACs) available with an 8V analog range and serial input. One example is the AD5541A DAC from Analog Devices. It has a 16-bit r…

This report is unhelpful without the GPT version you are using.

ChatGPT Mar23

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#90

Post by jrexilius »

rock_hard wrote: post #52
arcticbull wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, I noticed in the video that it recommended for a voltage regulator either an LM7805 or an LM1117 - either a super inefficient 5V regulator that has no business in new designs, or a 1.2V low-dropout 800mA regulator that is probably not appropriate to the other components it recommended (i.e. an LM7805 -> LM1117 would be 36% efficient at best). It then also recommends a LiPo battery with a nominal 3.7…

In this case it seems to be giving examples of common ICs that are voltage regulators - these answers to high level questions are pretty vague by default. We've had good results by asking follow up questions like "what power supply IC could I use to power a 3.3v microcontroller from a 3.7V nominal LiPo battery over the whole battery voltage range?". I asked that question and I got: LM3940 and AMS1117-3.3 (LDO, high d…

My god.. if you gave it real time stock updates to adjust BoM answers to availability that would be amazing!
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