4 ms·

We'd love to step aside to let developers build on top of the API. I'd even like to see someone revamp the Octopart UI! Here are some other ideas: - a really

by andres 17y ago

We'd love to step aside to let developers build on top of the API. I'd even like to see someone revamp the Octopart UI! Here are some other ideas: - a really good project manager (with collaborative features and publishing tools) - browser plugins/toolbars - ajax circuit simulator - an AdSense-type widget to help engineering forums monetize their sites Finally, I think that each node in our category map needs a specialized UI. Since we have 1000's of categories there's endless room for improvement there. Top of the list are: - power supply picker - capacitor picker - opamp picker Any other ideas???

tlb 17y ago
A power supply designer would be super-useful. I've designed at least a dozen onto PCBs in the last several years, all pretty similar to a few reference designs. It's a constant pain in the butt to keep up with obsoleted capacitors. I'd love to see a fully general-purpose power supply designer, where I enter a voltage & power and it spits out a working schematic complete with intelligently selected minimum-cost part numbers.
- tesseract 17y ago
  Several of the big voltage-regulator manufacturers (National, Linear, ST come to mind) have software along these lines already, some of which is fairly good. A unified and less cumbersome application would be great, especially if it could pick out passives (caps, as you suggest, but also inductors and freewheel diodes for switchers). National's Webench already does this, but its library of passives is very limited compared to Octopart and many of the parts it suggests are either expensive or hard to find in low quantities.
- blackguardx 17y ago
  TI and Linear seem to be pushing their power supply modules lately. They are pretty cool for projects where you don't care too much about mass production cost and space.

4 ms·

We'd love to step aside to let developers build on top of the API. I'd even like to see someone revamp the Octopart UI! Here are some other ideas: - a really

by andres 17y ago

tlb 17y ago
A power supply designer would be super-useful. I've designed at least a dozen onto PCBs in the last several years, all pretty similar to a few reference designs. It's a constant pain in the butt to keep up with obsoleted capacitors. I'd love to see a fully general-purpose power supply designer, where I enter a voltage & power and it spits out a working schematic complete with intelligently selected minimum-cost part numbers.
- tesseract 17y ago
  Several of the big voltage-regulator manufacturers (National, Linear, ST come to mind) have software along these lines already, some of which is fairly good. A unified and less cumbersome application would be great, especially if it could pick out passives (caps, as you suggest, but also inductors and freewheel diodes for switchers). National's Webench already does this, but its library of passives is very limited compared to Octopart and many of the parts it suggests are either expensive or hard to find in low quantities.
- blackguardx 17y ago
  TI and Linear seem to be pushing their power supply modules lately. They are pretty cool for projects where you don't care too much about mass production cost and space.