Diode: Build, program, and simulate hardware projects in the browser | Hacker News Reader

Diode: Build, program, and simulate hardware projects in the browser

withdiode.com

153 pointsbookofjoe26 comments

hey y'all, I'm Kenneth, founder of Diode. Cool to see this pop up here! We have lots planned for Diode and we'd love to hear what folks think about the product so far / what they could see it being used for in the future.

We started building Diode seriously at the beginning of September after I put a weekend project teaser out on twitter and got a decent amount of attention[1].

We want to build tools that make it 10x easier for anyone to get started hacking and building hardware. We're planning on adding microcontroller / single-board computer simulation pretty soon, which should make it a bit more interesting to play with!

Can't wait to hear what y'all have to say!

[1] - https://twitter.com/KennethCassel/status/1564613912670216197...

Hi Kenneth. Looks like a good foundation! I'll keep an eye on it for sure. I've been using Crumb Simulator to build Ben Eater's SAP-1 computer. Do you plan to have a similar level of functionality for this?

Also, curious if you can comment on the state of the SPICE used for this. I see, e.g., that you have an astable multivibrator in the examples. Will this produce the same voltage levels and transition behavior that you would see in a real world circuit? I ask because I've built the same circuit in EveryCircuit, and while the macro behavior is close enough, it doesn't accurately reproduce what I get on a real breadboard from a signals level. In comparison, Multisim Live gets it right, but runs rather slow (in particular, pausing for a long time during the transition state with a lot of analog behavior to sort out).

Also curious what you have planned for visualization of signals.

related and some of which has been released open source: https://wokwi.com (not affiliated)

Is there no scope or meter part? Playing around with the examples it's visually impressive but is there a way to probe say the voltage at a particular wire?

Looks like you can select the part and there's a toggle to show a voltage tag which hovers over the part during the simulation. Very rudimentary as yet.

Looks great, but I feel like I should be able to edit while simulating, like circuitjs does.

appreciate the feedback! agree that it should be more realtime :)

This looks neat.

I'm not understanding though, why is registration required to "Get Started"?

Hey! Diode founder here, you can play around with the tool without registering. If you want to save the project, then you have to register

Then why do you get a login prompt when clicking "Get Started"?

I see after poking around a bit more that you can edit the examples after opening them, but it's still not very obvious.

We'll look into reworking this flow!

Does it simulate “magic smoke”?

You were jesting, but a warning that some specification is exceeded (preferably taking temperature into account) would be neat.

yes it does now, here's a demo video [1] :)

[1] - https://twitter.com/austin_malerba/status/158745342814555750...

Not yet :)

Visually build and simulate electronics in a browser?

Definitely going to share this with my kids!

Sweet! My 8 yo has played around with it a bit, but would love to hear what other kids think about it

I thought this could be interesting. Testing some idea using my Chromebook, but then realized that placing symbols using a touch pad would be a drag (couldn't test it actually, since the page doesn't load on my old Pixel).

Guess I stick to LTspice for now ...

(sigh) as with so many web project links on HN, please ensure it works on mobile. It wasn't until I rotated to landscape I got the menus.

How was I to guess?

We're a tiny startup (2 people), right now we've done the 80/20 approach for mobile to make it semi-useable. The main platform for using Diode is desktop for now.

Definitely think supporting mobile fully in the future makes a ton of sense though. Thanks for the feedback!

NP and of course, it's your product and your market. It's just worth checking on the proportion of sessions from mobile. Also, the reason that I was using the phone is because of my usual trawl of HN before I get out of bed. Yes, I'd use it on desktop, but if I can't get past first base on mobile, it's Hasta La Vista. If nothing else, warn mobile users that the experience may not be ideal.

We're going to explicitly make the mobile view for non-editing purposes now :) we'll ship that change this week. Definitely appreciate the feedback!

this looks amazing. Loads super fast. Do you have plans for more electronic components? :) Also - how feasible is a simulated speaker?

A driver can be electrically modeled as a series resistor and inductor (very approximate model), I imagine that couldn’t be hard to add in.

You also have to model the acoustic part if you want to hear something.

we're going to add acoustic models too over time

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