Show HN: A place for feedback on PCB designs | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A place for feedback on PCB designs

postdrc.com

76 pointszciwor22 comments

Going from a large corporate environment with strict design reviews, to the only hardware adept person on my small team I was really missing some sort of feedback on some of my (open source) designs. Reddit.com/r/printedcircuitboards roughly serves as this, but I thought it could be fun to spin up something purpose built.

The hope is to build a nice environment to get some fresh eyes on a new PCB design before you wait 2-3 weeks to get your PCBs built. The schematic gets shown in a PDF viewer and any uploaded Gerber files are converted to SVG and displayed for reference.

Long term, I would love to see if this can grow into a repository of open source hardware that could easily be indexed and referenced for inspiration.

Obviously, please don't post any IP protected designs here.

In my experience, ALL designs at $corp are "IP protected."

/r/printedcircuitboards seems to be filled with spam. Looks like /r/PrintedCircuitBoard/ is the correct one.

Love what you've built so far! I've always wondered why it's so much easier to get feedback on code and product design mockups, but the hardware world has yet to catch up. It would be especially nice to streamline discussion between EEs, mechanical engineers, and maybe even industrial designers.

I think the key is creating a space where people can comment in context, as someone here suggested, and take action on the comments. Similar to Figma or Google Docs, the ability to facilitate discussion and iterate quickly makes the design process faster. That's essentially what we're trying to build at Flux.ai (I'm a cofounder).

We're still in private beta and have lots to figure out, but I'd love to chat with you and get your thoughts on what we've built so far :)

Neat idea, here is a few suggestions:

- you should post the solder mask and paste layers. Can’t review any component soldering issues without those.

- part assembly layer, same deal as above.

- stackup. You would need this to review anything more than a 2 layer board.

Question- have you tried overlaying the renders for different layers of the board? It is hard to review the one example you have on the website. The bottom and top layers are in different places so I have to mentally connect dots.

Altium offers a simplified free version that's web based and allows for collaborative review. I've never used it though.

https://circuitmaker.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CircuitMaker

This is what I was thinking. Our hardware engineer shares his designs with us using Altium. I don't even have to have a license to view it on the web. We're not in the same organization either. He is a contractor, the license is his, and he can share it with whomever he wants via email like a google doc.

Rich annotations on boards would be nice. More than what you can normally squeeze onto non-printing layers. I don't mean as a feature to add to the site, I mean the entire site IS partly this and I like the idea.

A way to discuss and explain things about a pcb that aren't easily written right on the pcb, like what happens in classrooms.

I often see myself drawing something a certain way on a board going up on github/pcbway/oshpark, and thinking someone else is going to "fix" this some day because it's not obvious why this bit here is drawn exactly this way, and I'm not cluttering up dwg.user with a paragraph of text for every other square cm...

And surely I am guilty of committing that same crime myself come to think of it.

This could help with that.

This is very helpful feedback, thanks! My mind goes to a few places when you talk about rich annotations on boards. Something like virtual sticky notes that are tied to specific areas on the design might be kind of fun. I hope to avoid just a list of screen grabs and paragraphs of text on the page.

I think it is a nice idea. I think having a place to provide eagle files might be an idea as I found myself chasing traces that at first appeared to be NC antennas that ended up being just a vertically flipped image I misread. It makes things a lot easier to view multiple layers in a single image, if that makes sense.

Regarding your circuit example... have You considered providing holes for mounting of heatsinks into account? I know there are sticky backed heatsinks available like those used on stepper drivers but I have always been partial to clips or screws, especially on power transistors. Likewise providing board mounts and clearances from board edges for dielectric properties is also a good idea.

Thanks for your note, I agree. I think it would be great to have a much better viewer. I worry about relying on raw design files because the EDA space is so fragmented. Everyone is using different tools and they really don't make it easy to bounce between design suites. Maybe an embedded Gerber viewer would be better suited?

That would be a nice addition, I attempted to right click save images to import into inkscape and stack them myself with transparency but I couldn't. Normally I would just printscreen then cut and paste through paint and then import but Im using a new laptop with compact keyboard(while I drink my coffee and wake up) and cant find the prntscrn function key through the rainbow backlight.

I would think adding multiple options would be best but then again if You did open it up, You may also run into people using the forum for unrelated or malicious files.

On a side note, I recently acquired an Ortur laser master 2 pro and a 6040 CNC desktop router and am building a tool chain for small scale, high turn around PCB production (Mainly for my own personal us but would be willing to share out a portion of my eventual production capacity). I would imagine there are many other people doing the same thing and that may be another resource your site may want to investigate. Especially given the ever growing shipping times for overseas products.

That is a great thought on the high turn PCB production. You will have to keep me updated on your progress as you get up and running. Although, I'm not sure how to share contact info inside of HN? My Twitter is linked in the about page of the postDRC app if you're interested in connecting.

Click on your name in the top right corner and add contact info in your 'about' section. Then, when others click on your username, it will show them your about page.

Great idea, thank you.

Haha ok that sounded like I'm a out to run off and clone it, no I'm a out to upload a few boards, because you know you can double dip just like the dating sites putting multiple different audiences in front of the same back end, and make a seemingly totally different, differently marketed site where you show off your designs and get likes and a place to humble brag and stuff, and you know that's what I want, since you know I'm definitely only posting boards I already think are jewels. :)

Using Firefox here. When I click the first link, I briefly see a layout, then the schematics pdf replaces the whole page, preventing me from seeing anything else.

Oh, great datapoint. I'll try to recreate. Thanks for the heads up!

It would be cool if GitHub allowed rich interaction with PCB files like this. I guess it would help with open hardware design.

I love this idea. As someone mentioned, leaving the safety blanket of a good team makes personal projects a little nerve-wracking. I’ve only looked on mobile but it would be nice to be able to copy-paste part numbers off the schematic (use case is looking up a datasheet, maybe there’s a slicker idea…).

Looks good. Re: the site – the silkscreen / statement of which chip is which would be very helpful. I imagine you could make a shiny html canvas area and permit per-tag feedback on specific points (bonus points for a floodfill-detected 'label net' tool...)

Nice job, this resonates with me that did a lot of hobby PCBs in my spare time.

Posted some comments on your example PCB but the newlines got removed and it turned into a wall of text.

just uploaded my design, let's see what happens :)

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