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Comment by DHaldane | Hacker News Reader

Thanks! We're working hard -- I just added that animation this morning and I have a few more to do.

I like your perspective on tackling the biggest problem. We can show a lot more of how users have been doing automation for firmware, docs, testing, etc ...

An underrated part of an autorouter is that you can enforce rules for DFM (and SI) automatically, so some of that tougher stuff is addressable with the right approach. Including a lot of compliance.

Certainly not trying to shrink the fun part - tried to make layout more of an optimization tool than a drafting tool. Although "I should not be doing this" is a mentality a lot of EEs bring to layout.

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I like your perspective on tackling the biggest problem

I’d be happy to generate some additional perspectives on your tool if there’s a way I can try it without spending $10k or going back to college for an .edu email address XD

An underrated part of an autorouter is that you can enforce rules for DFM (and SI) automatically, so some of that tougher stuff is addressable with the right approach. Including a lot of compliance.

You must be referring to an autorouter tool I’ve never tried. (Maybe your own?) All the ones I’ve ever seen produce trace fanouts that look like regurgitated spaghetti.

"I should not be doing this" is a mentality a lot of EEs bring to layout.

Probably explains why so many EEs struggle to get their designs to pass radiated emissions compliance tests. Layout is still circuit design: you just don’t know any of the component values you’re dealing with. Gotta learn to make good choices once you understand how board parasitics work.

Unrelated - I’m pretty sure I spoke with you or one of your cofounders about your product in comments when you first launched. I asked you about emissions compliance and I think DDR trace matching and routing in a comment thread. Glad to see you got at least one of those problems licked.

I like phrasing layout as circuit design

Technically it is, all the components on a PCB are connected together with bundles of resistors, inductors, capacitors, and antennas that we simplify into something called a "trace".

Also - as a side note - everyone in this comment thread kvetching about your tool’s price clearly doesn’t understand:

1) the value a good EE design brings to an organization, or

2) the amount of money selling electronics is worth to a company

You have to feed yourselves and your employees, and all the companies who really need this tool are ones that have no problem spending 10k per year to make their engineers more effective. (Thinking of Lockheed Martin here as they’re one of your flagship customers.)

The average Kicad hobbiest wants this, but doesn’t need it. At least, not in the same way someone with a boss, a program manager, a deadline, and four projects to support does.

> The average Kicad hobbiest wants this, but doesn’t need it. At least, not in the same way someone with a boss, a program manager, a deadline, and four projects to support does.

Yeah, but they're also never going to pay for it (or not anything close to this price) in a personal capacity.

So give it away free like for current students (would I get away with an alumni^ address I wondered) and generate hype, Youtube content, a pipeline of prospective employees who encourage their employer to adopt it; raving at work about how good it is for their hobby projects and would solve all the problems their having, etc.

^that's the genitive singular, lest you think it erroneously plural ;)

I think it is completely lost on this fresh companies that make commercial production software that the reason their "competitors" can charge $10k/mo is because they are entrenched and established.

If you are new on the scene, give it to .edu for free and charge everyone else $100 for an annual license. If your product is legitimately good, in ten years you will be the entrenched and established one.

Thank you. Talking to EEs that do this every day I hear "Well this would have to save me 1 day per month to be ROI positive".

Turns out saving that day is incredibly hard, because the professional workflows are intense.

Value of the product ends up being non-linear: either you're valuable enough to be in an EE's regular workflow saving time, or you're not. Worth a whole lot once you are, worth next to nothing if you are not.

> The average Kicad hobbiest wants this, but doesn’t need it.

Tbh, that's true for lots of things.

Personally, I spend about 2% of a projects time on kicad related stuff, and the rest on software development for the board.

Anything complex enough to require real knowledge and experience I'd rather hire a board and circuit designer.

I’ve never understood layout as being secondary. The artwork matters a great deal ensuring the design works and works well.

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