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Yeah, trying to learn KiCad is worse than learning Blender. If JLCPcb made a simple online editor that sourced from available parts and integrated directly with

Yeah, trying to learn KiCad is worse than learning Blender. If JLCPcb made a simple online editor that sourced from available parts and integrated directly with their store they'd be running out of banks to put their money into.

napowderly 3y ago
They do have this, its called EasyEDA. In my experience its not as good as kicad and definitely not as good as the 'professional' tools like cadence and altium. Our tool does basically do that though! We have a big library of kicad components that can be used in your designs as well as an import just about any JLC component just using its JLCPN. We love their service, would love to see that model proliferated to other companies also, so hard to beat having parts available and in stock.
wkipling 3y ago
Kicad is not that difficult to use. Sourcing parts can be though.
gedy 3y ago
They do! EasyEDA, and have used it to make custom keyboard PCBs. It's pretty handy and I found the learning curve to be much easier than KiCAD, etc.
brokensegue 3y ago
I learned kicad fairly quickly. I've tried several times to learn blender and failed. Then again I'm bad at art.
drunkonvinyl 3y ago
this resonates. i will share that i'm trying out and having luck with flux.ai. it's not perfect, but for a small hobby project and someone with little experience and not getting far quickly in kicad, it works. i have a pcb in-hand from jlcpcb right now and it works. it also introduces some of the shared features discussed above. (i don't work for them, just looking for something that would let me do a fairly fast PoC)
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Oh now this one is interesting, I've given it a short try and the UX is just on another level compared to the usual, I might actually be able to get something done with it. This is what EasyEDA should've been, not the terrible KiCad web clone that it is. For us hobbyists there's no point in investing years learning something proper like Altium because we won't ever be shipping to production or doing stupidly complex multilayer boards. We need the Tinkercad for PCBs, not Fusion360. Something that can be crude and oversimplified, but quick to use and also simple enough that even middle schoolers can learn it.
  - drunkonvinyl 3y ago
    i've even figured out how to create a component that didn't exist in their library - a lot of the manufacturers/related appear to provide the symbol, footprint and 3d files to recreate it on flux. this is one for example - https://www.flux.ai/centplaids0u/oki-78sr-51p5-w36-c-1480 https://www.flux.ai/centplaids0u/oki-78sr-51p5-w36-c-1480 - a 12v to 5v voltage regulator. got files from here: https://www.snapeda.com/parts/OKI-78SR-5/1.5-W36-C/Murata%20Power%20Solutions%20Inc./view-part/ https://www.snapeda.com/parts/OKI-78SR-5/1.5-W36-C/Murata%20.... Got it built into the board and it works! holy heck. hope it works for you!
fxtentacle 3y ago
They did and there's even tools to import their component library into Altium or Eagle.
lelanthran 3y ago
> Yeah, trying to learn KiCad is worse than learning Blender. I dunno. I've used others, and KiCad was no harder to start with than the others (Horizon, LibrePCB, Lepton/gEDA, some others I forgot). I asked for recommendations a week ago on HN for EDA products, and tried them all. You know which one I eventually settled on? The one with the most components (symbols + footprints). Turns out, features are nice (rules checker, etc) but not having to f*&^ing create my own symbols for a mass-produced part, then design the footprint for the same part is a huge timesaver.[1] For many of us non-professionals designing a board, the UI just isn't as big of an issue as having to create our own components. [1] At any reasonable hourly rate, having to create a library of just 1 component costs more than whatever you think you'll save with a slicker UI.
- rowanG077 3y ago
  This. By FAR the most annoying thing of creating a simple PCB is dealing with symbols and footprints. Why the hell is this is not a solved problem.
  - delfinom 3y ago
    Because every CAD, which has traditionally been dominated by commercial solutions invents their own file format for lockin. On top of that semiconductor vendors don't want to hire people to draw symbols in every possible cad solution. So you instead have them release symbols in some preferred tool, maybe they also outsource to third party services like UltraLibrarian. There problem with the third party services is they do the laziest conversions possible between format using scripting and often do a horrible job.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      > Because every CAD, which has traditionally been dominated by commercial solutions invents their own file format for lockin. This doesn't really explain why creators of new CAD programs (Horizon and LibrePCB are new) invent new data formats. We've seen time and time again, in every digital domain ever invented, that the most important thing is the dataset. It doesn't really matter how nice the library manager is if what it manages has limited availability - and no, asking for a community to pitch in and help with the duplicated work is not a solution. The solution is to pick the largest library and use its format.

napowderly 3y ago

They do have this, its called EasyEDA. In my experience its not as good as kicad and definitely not as good as the 'professional' tools like cadence and altium. Our tool does basically do that though! We have a big library of kicad components that can be used in your designs as well as an import just about any JLC component just using its JLCPN. We love their service, would love to see that model proliferated to other companies also, so hard to beat having parts available and in stock.

wkipling 3y ago

Kicad is not that difficult to use. Sourcing parts can be though.

gedy 3y ago

They do! EasyEDA, and have used it to make custom keyboard PCBs. It's pretty handy and I found the learning curve to be much easier than KiCAD, etc.

brokensegue 3y ago

I learned kicad fairly quickly. I've tried several times to learn blender and failed. Then again I'm bad at art.

drunkonvinyl 3y ago

this resonates. i will share that i'm trying out and having luck with flux.ai. it's not perfect, but for a small hobby project and someone with little experience and not getting far quickly in kicad, it works. i have a pcb in-hand from jlcpcb right now and it works. it also introduces some of the shared features discussed above. (i don't work for them, just looking for something that would let me do a fairly fast PoC)

moffkalast 3y ago
Oh now this one is interesting, I've given it a short try and the UX is just on another level compared to the usual, I might actually be able to get something done with it. This is what EasyEDA should've been, not the terrible KiCad web clone that it is. For us hobbyists there's no point in investing years learning something proper like Altium because we won't ever be shipping to production or doing stupidly complex multilayer boards. We need the Tinkercad for PCBs, not Fusion360. Something that can be crude and oversimplified, but quick to use and also simple enough that even middle schoolers can learn it.
- drunkonvinyl 3y ago
  i've even figured out how to create a component that didn't exist in their library - a lot of the manufacturers/related appear to provide the symbol, footprint and 3d files to recreate it on flux. this is one for example - https://www.flux.ai/centplaids0u/oki-78sr-51p5-w36-c-1480 https://www.flux.ai/centplaids0u/oki-78sr-51p5-w36-c-1480 - a 12v to 5v voltage regulator. got files from here: https://www.snapeda.com/parts/OKI-78SR-5/1.5-W36-C/Murata%20Power%20Solutions%20Inc./view-part/ https://www.snapeda.com/parts/OKI-78SR-5/1.5-W36-C/Murata%20.... Got it built into the board and it works! holy heck. hope it works for you!

fxtentacle 3y ago

They did and there's even tools to import their component library into Altium or Eagle.

lelanthran 3y ago

> Yeah, trying to learn KiCad is worse than learning Blender. I dunno. I've used others, and KiCad was no harder to start with than the others (Horizon, LibrePCB, Lepton/gEDA, some others I forgot). I asked for recommendations a week ago on HN for EDA products, and tried them all. You know which one I eventually settled on? The one with the most components (symbols + footprints). Turns out, features are nice (rules checker, etc) but not having to f*&^ing create my own symbols for a mass-produced part, then design the footprint for the same part is a huge timesaver.[1] For many of us non-professionals designing a board, the UI just isn't as big of an issue as having to create our own components. [1] At any reasonable hourly rate, having to create a library of just 1 component costs more than whatever you think you'll save with a slicker UI.

rowanG077 3y ago
This. By FAR the most annoying thing of creating a simple PCB is dealing with symbols and footprints. Why the hell is this is not a solved problem.
- delfinom 3y ago
  Because every CAD, which has traditionally been dominated by commercial solutions invents their own file format for lockin. On top of that semiconductor vendors don't want to hire people to draw symbols in every possible cad solution. So you instead have them release symbols in some preferred tool, maybe they also outsource to third party services like UltraLibrarian. There problem with the third party services is they do the laziest conversions possible between format using scripting and often do a horrible job.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > Because every CAD, which has traditionally been dominated by commercial solutions invents their own file format for lockin. This doesn't really explain why creators of new CAD programs (Horizon and LibrePCB are new) invent new data formats. We've seen time and time again, in every digital domain ever invented, that the most important thing is the dataset. It doesn't really matter how nice the library manager is if what it manages has limited availability - and no, asking for a community to pitch in and help with the duplicated work is not a solution. The solution is to pick the largest library and use its format.