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I have to give JITX credit - every time I see their latest product offering, it gets closer to something I’d actually use. (Working EE who primarily does board

I have to give JITX credit - every time I see their latest product offering, it gets closer to something I’d actually use. (Working EE who primarily does board and system design.) These layout automations they show in the landing page are the first thing they’ve showcased that I’m intrigued enough to want to try for myself. The thing I wonder about with all of these EDA companies is whether any of them understand that they’re not attacking the biggest problem of circuit design. Capturing the SCH/PCB is a relatively small part of the process of getting a working design ready to sell. Less than ten percent of the time, I’d guess. The bulk goes in to design documentation, testing, certification, compliance, and DFM/DFA. A part of me sort of hates to see these companies do their thing, because it’s making the fun part of the job shorter and faster.

DHaldane 3y ago
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.
- cushychicken 3y ago
  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.
  - klysm 3y ago
    I like phrasing layout as circuit design
    - Workaccount2 3y ago
      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".
- bfrog 3y ago
  I’ve never understood layout as being secondary. The artwork matters a great deal ensuring the design works and works well.
- cushychicken 3y ago
  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.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    > 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 ;)
    - Workaccount2 3y ago
      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.
  - DHaldane 3y ago
    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.
fool1471 3y ago
> A part of me sort of hates to see these companies do their thing, because it’s making the fun part of the job shorter and faster. For sure! PCB layout is one of the best and most enjoyable parts of the job. My major concern with these products is always the quality of the schematics they produce. It's not enough for a schematic to have all the nets connected correctly - a schematic is a piece of documentation that, when drawn well, should convey a lot more information than simply what pin is connected to which others.
- gabesullice 3y ago
  I'm not an EE, so please understand this as a sincere question: wouldn't the code and its comments become documentation that would otherwise be in the well-drawn schematic? As an outsider, my assumption is that the schematic would become less of a design document and more of a simple visualization. What am I missing?
  - LM358 3y ago
    >wouldn't the code and its comments become documentation that would otherwise be in the well-drawn schematic? Technically, yes, but 99% of EEs would not approve of code in some weird new DSL as documentation for a circuit. While it may contain the same information as a drawn schematic, it is much more inscrutable and introduces mental overhead when you actually need to read it. There's also a huge difference between a poorly laid out schematic and an excellent one; the latter makes it easier to follow the flow of signals and power through relevant parts of the circuit and allows you to easily pick out the different parts/modules and how they play their part in the circuit as a whole, all with a quick glance at a drawing. I guess a (poor) software analogy would be that you could surely implement a function as a bunch of GOTOs and/or BRANCH commands, but just making a nested for loop would make the logic much clearer.
    - fool1471 3y ago
      Yes absolutely this. The major issue is that there are a lot more stake-holders in a schematic design than just the person who draws it. Often the person who draws the schematic is not the person who lays out the PCB, so the schematic needs to encode information about how to lay the PCB out. For example, you may have several components in parallel in a filter circuit; the order that they are placed on the schematic can be used to communicate which order they should be placed on the board (but does not affect the electrical correctness of the schematic at all), and this in turn helps to betray the function of these components. Even if the whole PCB design is being done by one engineer, other engineers need to be able to review it. If a schematic is electrically correct but otherwise a mess, it makes reviewing it a lot more difficult. Then there will be third-parties who need to read the schematic and understand the design - for hobbyist products this could be the end-users, and in consumer products it might be service engineers. A well drawn schematic makes a PCB easier to understand and therefore easier to debug, repair, and modify. In the analogy of software vs schematics, schematics are both code and documentation at the same time.

DHaldane 3y ago

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.

cushychicken 3y ago
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.
- klysm 3y ago
  I like phrasing layout as circuit design
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    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".
bfrog 3y ago
I’ve never understood layout as being secondary. The artwork matters a great deal ensuring the design works and works well.
cushychicken 3y ago
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.
- OJFord 3y ago
  > 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 ;)
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    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.
- DHaldane 3y ago
  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.

fool1471 3y ago

> A part of me sort of hates to see these companies do their thing, because it’s making the fun part of the job shorter and faster. For sure! PCB layout is one of the best and most enjoyable parts of the job. My major concern with these products is always the quality of the schematics they produce. It's not enough for a schematic to have all the nets connected correctly - a schematic is a piece of documentation that, when drawn well, should convey a lot more information than simply what pin is connected to which others.

gabesullice 3y ago
I'm not an EE, so please understand this as a sincere question: wouldn't the code and its comments become documentation that would otherwise be in the well-drawn schematic? As an outsider, my assumption is that the schematic would become less of a design document and more of a simple visualization. What am I missing?
- LM358 3y ago
  >wouldn't the code and its comments become documentation that would otherwise be in the well-drawn schematic? Technically, yes, but 99% of EEs would not approve of code in some weird new DSL as documentation for a circuit. While it may contain the same information as a drawn schematic, it is much more inscrutable and introduces mental overhead when you actually need to read it. There's also a huge difference between a poorly laid out schematic and an excellent one; the latter makes it easier to follow the flow of signals and power through relevant parts of the circuit and allows you to easily pick out the different parts/modules and how they play their part in the circuit as a whole, all with a quick glance at a drawing. I guess a (poor) software analogy would be that you could surely implement a function as a bunch of GOTOs and/or BRANCH commands, but just making a nested for loop would make the logic much clearer.
  - fool1471 3y ago
    Yes absolutely this. The major issue is that there are a lot more stake-holders in a schematic design than just the person who draws it. Often the person who draws the schematic is not the person who lays out the PCB, so the schematic needs to encode information about how to lay the PCB out. For example, you may have several components in parallel in a filter circuit; the order that they are placed on the schematic can be used to communicate which order they should be placed on the board (but does not affect the electrical correctness of the schematic at all), and this in turn helps to betray the function of these components. Even if the whole PCB design is being done by one engineer, other engineers need to be able to review it. If a schematic is electrically correct but otherwise a mess, it makes reviewing it a lot more difficult. Then there will be third-parties who need to read the schematic and understand the design - for hobbyist products this could be the end-users, and in consumer products it might be service engineers. A well drawn schematic makes a PCB easier to understand and therefore easier to debug, repair, and modify. In the analogy of software vs schematics, schematics are both code and documentation at the same time.