4 ms·

It looks like a mistake to target KiCad. Pros generally use Altium. 2 layers is super limiting! 24 hour turnaround is actually quite slow... I would bet they

It looks like a mistake to target KiCad. Pros generally use Altium. 2 layers is super limiting! 24 hour turnaround is actually quite slow... I would bet they have a human in the loop.

ColanR 7y ago
Alternatively, they might be renting expensive GPUs, and they are trying to minimize how many they are running in parallel. 24 hour turnaround probably lets them run each generation consecutively.
- elcritch 7y ago
  Or both. It looks like a “preview” release and might still have humans checking the results to remove more bugs. That also explains targeting KiCad. They’re wanting “hobbyist” projects especially as 2-layers is limited. Though I do use KiCad for our company as our main thing isn’t electronics. Figured AI routing was a matter of time. Though I’d be more happy with a “guided” AI layout. Often I want some general layout with parts but don’t care too much of the specific routes. It’s tempting to add a more advanced routing tool to KiCad...
DivisionSol 7y ago
Just want to counter this sentiment and say I love the fact they are targeting KiCad. A good way to incentivize the free, open source tool. Most hobbyists don't need more than 2 layers, and that seems like something that can be eventually expanded in the future. 24 hours, however, is a little bit long. It would be nice to see exactly what they are offering before uploading a file, right on the front page. Some components absolutely need to be in a fixed position, some can be moved around... Some have RF requirements... Does it minimize size? Does it brute-force the traces?
- new299 7y ago
  From what I can tell, you need to position all the components and then it routes between them...
  - DivisionSol 7y ago
    That's a shame... There is a bit of fun figuring out routing, but, I don't think that is an opinion that applies to most.
    - ComputerGuru 7y ago
      It’s not about whether or not there are people that enjoy it; it’s the fact that the market they are serving doesn’t exist (people that don’t enjoy or don’t want to route themselves but have already placed the components correctly).
- avian 7y ago
  > Just want to counter this sentiment and say I love the fact they are targeting KiCad. Me too. Altium is a reasonably good tool, but I would be super happy if its monopoly on professional electronics design would be broken.
new299 7y ago
The website says there’s no human in the loop... but who knows. It takes dsn input files and outputs ses files (if the examples are accurate). The ses files appear to contain traces only. So I assume you would import these over your already laid out components. Perhaps two layers is for the free version? There doesn’t seem to be anything Kicad specific, maybe they’ve only tested it with Kicad. It seems to come from a team doing a bunch of AI stuff, not a hardware focused team. So I can see there being issues. I’m curious to see how well it works though.
metafex 7y ago
Quite the contrary, KiCad is constantly improving and getting better with each release. When did your Altium last crash? I bet it wasn't more than a week ago. To quote a colleague: "Altium is used by those who are forced to do so" The real reason why companies are invested so much in it, because they have knowledge in it and huge design libraries. Now offering a way to convert those properly to KiCad and giving support for edge-cases, that would be a business opportunity.
- krapht 7y ago
  Altium crashes, but is useful for routing non-trivial boards. I last used kicad in 2014 so perhaps my opinion is dated, but there was no competition then. I can't imagine an order of magnitude improvement has happened since. Other random thoughts: real boards take weeks because signal integrity had to be taken into account. If I can just mash wires from point to point it doesn't take that long. Also: hobbyist kicad users won't pay for this service. No expertise necessary - who the heck is the target demographic? Who is doing custom hardware these days that finds the PCB layout part of the design difficult (but amenable to autorouting?)
CasperDern 7y ago
Since KiCad 5.1 you can have more than 2 layers.
- retSava 7y ago
  GP refers to deeppcb not supporting >2 layers atm.
janoc 7y ago
They likely targeted Kicad because the file formats are open and documented. Sadly another project designed by a software/AI guy who has little to no clue about the problem they are trying to solve. When all I have is a hammer everything looks like a nail ... I wonder whether this is from the same clueless people who were trying to sell an idea of AI-generated board layouts on Reddit not a long time ago.

It looks like a mistake to target KiCad. Pros generally use Altium. 2 layers is super limiting! 24 hour turnaround is actually quite slow... I would bet they have a human in the loop.

ColanR 7y ago

Alternatively, they might be renting expensive GPUs, and they are trying to minimize how many they are running in parallel. 24 hour turnaround probably lets them run each generation consecutively.

elcritch 7y ago
Or both. It looks like a “preview” release and might still have humans checking the results to remove more bugs. That also explains targeting KiCad. They’re wanting “hobbyist” projects especially as 2-layers is limited. Though I do use KiCad for our company as our main thing isn’t electronics. Figured AI routing was a matter of time. Though I’d be more happy with a “guided” AI layout. Often I want some general layout with parts but don’t care too much of the specific routes. It’s tempting to add a more advanced routing tool to KiCad...

DivisionSol 7y ago

Just want to counter this sentiment and say I love the fact they are targeting KiCad. A good way to incentivize the free, open source tool. Most hobbyists don't need more than 2 layers, and that seems like something that can be eventually expanded in the future. 24 hours, however, is a little bit long. It would be nice to see exactly what they are offering before uploading a file, right on the front page. Some components absolutely need to be in a fixed position, some can be moved around... Some have RF requirements... Does it minimize size? Does it brute-force the traces?

new299 7y ago
From what I can tell, you need to position all the components and then it routes between them...
- DivisionSol 7y ago
  That's a shame... There is a bit of fun figuring out routing, but, I don't think that is an opinion that applies to most.
  - ComputerGuru 7y ago
    It’s not about whether or not there are people that enjoy it; it’s the fact that the market they are serving doesn’t exist (people that don’t enjoy or don’t want to route themselves but have already placed the components correctly).
avian 7y ago
> Just want to counter this sentiment and say I love the fact they are targeting KiCad. Me too. Altium is a reasonably good tool, but I would be super happy if its monopoly on professional electronics design would be broken.

new299 7y ago

The website says there’s no human in the loop... but who knows. It takes dsn input files and outputs ses files (if the examples are accurate). The ses files appear to contain traces only. So I assume you would import these over your already laid out components. Perhaps two layers is for the free version? There doesn’t seem to be anything Kicad specific, maybe they’ve only tested it with Kicad. It seems to come from a team doing a bunch of AI stuff, not a hardware focused team. So I can see there being issues. I’m curious to see how well it works though.

metafex 7y ago

Quite the contrary, KiCad is constantly improving and getting better with each release. When did your Altium last crash? I bet it wasn't more than a week ago. To quote a colleague: "Altium is used by those who are forced to do so" The real reason why companies are invested so much in it, because they have knowledge in it and huge design libraries. Now offering a way to convert those properly to KiCad and giving support for edge-cases, that would be a business opportunity.

krapht 7y ago
Altium crashes, but is useful for routing non-trivial boards. I last used kicad in 2014 so perhaps my opinion is dated, but there was no competition then. I can't imagine an order of magnitude improvement has happened since. Other random thoughts: real boards take weeks because signal integrity had to be taken into account. If I can just mash wires from point to point it doesn't take that long. Also: hobbyist kicad users won't pay for this service. No expertise necessary - who the heck is the target demographic? Who is doing custom hardware these days that finds the PCB layout part of the design difficult (but amenable to autorouting?)

CasperDern 7y ago

Since KiCad 5.1 you can have more than 2 layers.

retSava 7y ago
GP refers to deeppcb not supporting >2 layers atm.

janoc 7y ago

They likely targeted Kicad because the file formats are open and documented. Sadly another project designed by a software/AI guy who has little to no clue about the problem they are trying to solve. When all I have is a hammer everything looks like a nail ... I wonder whether this is from the same clueless people who were trying to sell an idea of AI-generated board layouts on Reddit not a long time ago.