6 ms·

CircuitLab - online schematic editor & circuit simulator

62 points by microtherion 15y ago

jopython2 15y ago
Wish I had access to this 22 years ago for my electronics degree :(
- phodo 15y ago
  +1, like so many other things these days... access is so critical: a) in a developing country, access = access to education tools (like stanford's online courses, udemy, etc.) b) in developed countries, access = access to tools that can serve as "force multipliers" in terms of enabling creativity, understanding, low cost entrepreneurship tl;dr: we are living in the Age of Access.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    The next steps are access to capital and access to connections, or innovations that make social connections and large investments obsolete. Places like YC and TechStars help with these for a small subset of the population, so we're off to a decent start.
viraptor 15y ago
Very similar to what MITx 6.002 offers in the lab. Even the interface / interaction is quite similar. Is there any connection between those projects?
- compumike 15y ago
  (Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) We've been in touch with the group at MIT that designed the browser-based circuit simulator for their online 6.002x course, but there is no official relationship between the two projects at this time.
  - evoxed 15y ago
    But don't worry, CircuitLab has been very popular with all the 6.002 people in IRC! The MITx interface is not without its share of bugs.
MichailP 15y ago
This is an interesting project, however having your simulations and schematics in a cloud does seem a little bit careless for any serious work. It doesn't seem like a real alternative for various version of PSPice and other software. Am I missing something?
- davorak 15y ago
  It is a good educational resource. I know I just taught a one day course in basic circuits and I would have used this instead of SolveElec.
- compumike 15y ago
  (Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) I believe a parallel question would be: are the "serious work" users avoiding cloud-based software such as Google Docs, Dropbox, Github, Basecamp, and even Gmail?
  - viraptor 15y ago
    Where my money depends on it - yes, actually I do avoid them. (apart from github - since they're easy to replace when needed/down) If I can't have a local copy, it's too dangerous. Still - great for testing stuff out quickly.
  - josephhardin 15y ago
    Honestly, somewhat. Dropbox and Gmail are seen as fine with less sharing with the internet and more about just having your personal service online, whereas things like Google Docs and Github less so. Even then, you try to avoid using Gmail to send sensitive material(Not to mention actually sensitive in a legal sense).
    - compumike 15y ago
      I think you and viraptor are right -- the answer is still "yes/somewhat" to avoiding hosted solutions for a lot of people, and especially companies. Ten years ago, many small-medium businesses had their own IT staff running an email server, file storage, and maybe even a little intranet site. Many still do, but I'd guess the fraction has gone down significantly as companies slowly get comfortable moving some of their bits out of the building. (Key word is slowly.) But it's happening: I'm sure there are tens of thousands of HN readers who today keep their important data in hosted source code repositories, hosted accounting/invoicing packages, hosted CRM services, hosted e-mail services ... where both the software and the data do not necessarily live on their own machine. It hasn't happened as much in creative or engineering tools yet, but in my opinion, that's rapidly about to change as browsers become more and more capable platforms for powerful apps. Furthermore, the line between "my software" and "cloud software" is being quickly blurred from both sides. From the existing desktop players, consider Adobe's Creative Suite becoming a subscription service / SaaS (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877191 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877191). And from the web apps side, consider that if we knew that people were willing to pay enough for it to be worth our time, we could package up CircuitLab to run as an offline app (already in the Chrome Web Store, but requires connection right now https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haghanbgfkfpmepoohpigmglbfejljoj https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haghanbgfkfpmepooh...).
bencevans 15y ago
Looks good I've tried a few local application based software applications but this has the feature that they're lacking/not as full as I wish and that's the custom parts. I havn't been doing anything major, just wanted a PIC board as I have to include on in an AS Level Project. Brilliant timing cause it's due in in two days and was going to start final diagrams tomorrow. Cheers!
- compumike 15y ago
  (Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) That's the second time we've heard a story like that! The first was from someone on Reddit making a "rage comic" titled "Lab report saved": http://imgur.com/4E8qP http://imgur.com/4E8qP from http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/comments/s3yik/lab_report_saved/ http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/comments/s3yik/l... Good luck with your project.
  - bencevans 15y ago
    Haha, Brilliant!
  - dhughes 15y ago
    Oh the irony, I have to beef up my electronics for work so I blocked Reddit to keep me off it then I see this on HN.
droithomme 15y ago
Really nice implementation, excellent work guys.
will_lam 15y ago
Interesting. Very similar to another YC company, http://upverter.com http://upverter.com though
- catch23 15y ago
  probably less so... upverter won't simulate it. circuit lab does look like a useful tool though -- great way for kids to learn who probably don't have access to pspice or oscilloscopes.
simonbarker87 15y ago
I found CircuitLab a few weeks ago and was impressed with it. I have little need to simulate simple circuits with discrete components - what would be amazing is if this could be the start of a system that could include micro controllers - in my dream world these micro controllers would be programmable with the code you would write if you had the physical micro controller and the simulation would allow you to fully prototype an embedded system without having to fight with physical circuit issues (like: oh crap i've put this transistor in the wrong way round - that's why it's not worked for the last hour). Sadly I don't think this dream solution will ever exist - maybe just for a PIC16F690 or and mbed?

62 points by microtherion 15y ago

jopython2 15y ago

Wish I had access to this 22 years ago for my electronics degree :(

phodo 15y ago
+1, like so many other things these days... access is so critical: a) in a developing country, access = access to education tools (like stanford's online courses, udemy, etc.) b) in developed countries, access = access to tools that can serve as "force multipliers" in terms of enabling creativity, understanding, low cost entrepreneurship tl;dr: we are living in the Age of Access.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  The next steps are access to capital and access to connections, or innovations that make social connections and large investments obsolete. Places like YC and TechStars help with these for a small subset of the population, so we're off to a decent start.

viraptor 15y ago

Very similar to what MITx 6.002 offers in the lab. Even the interface / interaction is quite similar. Is there any connection between those projects?

compumike 15y ago
(Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) We've been in touch with the group at MIT that designed the browser-based circuit simulator for their online 6.002x course, but there is no official relationship between the two projects at this time.
- evoxed 15y ago
  But don't worry, CircuitLab has been very popular with all the 6.002 people in IRC! The MITx interface is not without its share of bugs.

MichailP 15y ago

This is an interesting project, however having your simulations and schematics in a cloud does seem a little bit careless for any serious work. It doesn't seem like a real alternative for various version of PSPice and other software. Am I missing something?

davorak 15y ago
It is a good educational resource. I know I just taught a one day course in basic circuits and I would have used this instead of SolveElec.
compumike 15y ago
(Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) I believe a parallel question would be: are the "serious work" users avoiding cloud-based software such as Google Docs, Dropbox, Github, Basecamp, and even Gmail?
- viraptor 15y ago
  Where my money depends on it - yes, actually I do avoid them. (apart from github - since they're easy to replace when needed/down) If I can't have a local copy, it's too dangerous. Still - great for testing stuff out quickly.
- josephhardin 15y ago
  Honestly, somewhat. Dropbox and Gmail are seen as fine with less sharing with the internet and more about just having your personal service online, whereas things like Google Docs and Github less so. Even then, you try to avoid using Gmail to send sensitive material(Not to mention actually sensitive in a legal sense).
  - compumike 15y ago
    I think you and viraptor are right -- the answer is still "yes/somewhat" to avoiding hosted solutions for a lot of people, and especially companies. Ten years ago, many small-medium businesses had their own IT staff running an email server, file storage, and maybe even a little intranet site. Many still do, but I'd guess the fraction has gone down significantly as companies slowly get comfortable moving some of their bits out of the building. (Key word is slowly.) But it's happening: I'm sure there are tens of thousands of HN readers who today keep their important data in hosted source code repositories, hosted accounting/invoicing packages, hosted CRM services, hosted e-mail services ... where both the software and the data do not necessarily live on their own machine. It hasn't happened as much in creative or engineering tools yet, but in my opinion, that's rapidly about to change as browsers become more and more capable platforms for powerful apps. Furthermore, the line between "my software" and "cloud software" is being quickly blurred from both sides. From the existing desktop players, consider Adobe's Creative Suite becoming a subscription service / SaaS (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877191 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3877191). And from the web apps side, consider that if we knew that people were willing to pay enough for it to be worth our time, we could package up CircuitLab to run as an offline app (already in the Chrome Web Store, but requires connection right now https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haghanbgfkfpmepoohpigmglbfejljoj https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/haghanbgfkfpmepooh...).

bencevans 15y ago

Looks good I've tried a few local application based software applications but this has the feature that they're lacking/not as full as I wish and that's the custom parts. I havn't been doing anything major, just wanted a PIC board as I have to include on in an AS Level Project. Brilliant timing cause it's due in in two days and was going to start final diagrams tomorrow. Cheers!

compumike 15y ago
(Note: I'm one of the developers of CircuitLab.) That's the second time we've heard a story like that! The first was from someone on Reddit making a "rage comic" titled "Lab report saved": http://imgur.com/4E8qP http://imgur.com/4E8qP from http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/comments/s3yik/lab_report_saved/ http://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/comments/s3yik/l... Good luck with your project.
- bencevans 15y ago
  Haha, Brilliant!
- dhughes 15y ago
  Oh the irony, I have to beef up my electronics for work so I blocked Reddit to keep me off it then I see this on HN.

droithomme 15y ago

Really nice implementation, excellent work guys.

will_lam 15y ago

Interesting. Very similar to another YC company, http://upverter.com http://upverter.com though

catch23 15y ago
probably less so... upverter won't simulate it. circuit lab does look like a useful tool though -- great way for kids to learn who probably don't have access to pspice or oscilloscopes.

simonbarker87 15y ago

I found CircuitLab a few weeks ago and was impressed with it. I have little need to simulate simple circuits with discrete components - what would be amazing is if this could be the start of a system that could include micro controllers - in my dream world these micro controllers would be programmable with the code you would write if you had the physical micro controller and the simulation would allow you to fully prototype an embedded system without having to fight with physical circuit issues (like: oh crap i've put this transistor in the wrong way round - that's why it's not worked for the last hour). Sadly I don't think this dream solution will ever exist - maybe just for a PIC16F690 or and mbed?