[HN Gopher] Ultra Librarian joins Flux to take the hard out of h...
___________________________________________________________________
Ultra Librarian joins Flux to take the hard out of hardware
Author : rock_hard
Score : 47 points
Date : 2024-03-06 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.flux.ai)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.flux.ai)
| engineer_22 wrote:
| I have not found Flux to be particularly useful. For schematic
| design and PCB layout KiCAD is my go-to. Flux was difficult to
| use and the purported AI assistance was non-existent.
| polalavik wrote:
| same I've tried to use flux multiple times and there's just not
| an intuitive thing about it. I could barely draw a schematic.
|
| I should add that I'm somewhat experienced as well. I've
| successfully designed 6 layer boards with blind via, BGAs,
| Bluetooth trace antennas before trying flux. Still have no clue
| how to use flux.
| swamp40 wrote:
| Digikey has made Ultra Librarian famous. I wouldn't be surprised
| if they were connected somehow. About 80% of Digikey components
| have models. About 80% of those are Ultra Librarian models. About
| 95% of the models are correct, which is a lot better than a few
| years ago.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| All of it is better than a few years ago.
|
| I needed something with really complex footprint that no one
| had, I contacted SnapEDA, and for $50 they did a model and
| footprint in less than a day. Extremely worth the money in that
| case.
| peteforde wrote:
| I spent several months working with Flux, and while I actually
| generally enjoyed the UI and web-based approach, I had to switch
| back to KiCAD because there were so many dealbreaking bugs in
| fundamental features.
|
| The realtime collaboration was just straight up broken; as in, my
| collaborator would make changes that would not manifest until I
| refreshed. This is unacceptable.
|
| The PCB tracing was unusable because you could not control the
| wires and things would appear in strange places. Forget auto-
| routing... I had trouble just getting it to connect wires.
|
| I could go on at (great) length, but while I genuinely am rooting
| for the team behind this product, I can't recommend it until they
| prioritize getting the fundamentals working properly over adding
| new AI features.
|
| That said, in attempting to work through these issues, I gained a
| healthy amount of respect for how hard it is to create a viable
| new entry in this domain. For whatever reason, it often seems
| culturally normalized to shit on Flux and I think this is toxic
| and unproductive.
| bsder wrote:
| Partnering with Ultra Librarian is simply going to make me more
| inclined to shit on Flux, though. And I don't even know
| anything about Flux.
|
| These "library managers" like Ultra Librarian and SnapEDA are a
| pox upon the ecosystem. The symbols and footprints have non-
| open source licenses, so you nominally can't share them. They
| simply want to get in the middle of your design so that they
| can monetize you.
| peteforde wrote:
| Damn, I am apparently woefully ignorant of this. As someone
| who is somehow both intimidated and fatigued of having to
| track down multiple assets for every item in my BOM,
| DigiKey's downloadables have been huge win... or so I
| thought?
|
| How does the licensing issue actually manifest in a practical
| sense? By what mechanism(s) could this monetization occur? Is
| this sabre rattling or are small hardware designers actually
| getting bills for using premade footprints and models?
| by_Seeing wrote:
| In Flux, this closed source aspect doesn't exist. Any user
| can fork and alter any part.
| swamp40 wrote:
| I don't see how it's possible to beat companies like Altium
| that have been continually improving the sch and pcb design
| experience for the last 30 years.
|
| The AI is a cool idea. Maybe as an add-on? An import? A
| library? Collaboration? IDK, but details like via tenting
| properties on layer 3 are best left to the experts.
| peteforde wrote:
| I think it's a huge mistake for any ecosystem to be
| impenetrable to new players with fresh ideas.
|
| We see this in the web browser engine space with Chromium.
|
| That's why I find the glee with which prominent EE community
| types appear to condemn Flux really frustrating. Yes, Flux
| has big problems and a huge mountain to climb. To me, that's
| why we should encourage them. There are a million easier
| things those folks could be attempting, so shitting on them
| for trying to bring a new perspective is self-defeating.
|
| As for Altium, I haven't used it because it's very expensive
| and tied up in a larger enterprise ecosystem. It doesn't make
| a ton of sense for solo or small-team designers to use a tool
| heavily influenced and full of tooling for use by the world's
| largest companies.
|
| That's why I found Flux so compelling; my partner and I
| actually want to use the "Figma for electronics", if such a
| thing can be provided without critical bugs.
| swamp40 wrote:
| It's funny, Altium was the underdog for years. Only as they
| continually improved did they slowly gain market share.
|
| The tools need to work consistently, just like the tools of
| a carpenter. If his hammer head keeps falling off, it's not
| very helpful even if it was free.
|
| My point was that it is really difficult to make sch and
| pcb design _easy_ for the end user. There are already
| companies that have climbed that mountain. AI is a nice
| differentiator, but in my opinion a startup would be better
| focused by working _with_ existing tools instead of
| reinventing them (poorly).
|
| Obviously startups are free to do as they wish.
| by_Seeing wrote:
| This is one of the more measured takes I've read about our
| tool. I'm a product designer building Flux and I'd love to hear
| more about your issues. If you're interested in helping us
| climb that mountain faster, hit me up at brooks at flux.ai
|
| Also, we're working fast to solve some of the issues you
| describe. Have you tried us recently?
| peteforde wrote:
| Kerry was really amazing to work through issues with. He took
| my feedback like a champ and was able to get a number of
| issues addressed. I made it clear to him that I wasn't giving
| up on Flux, but that I had to do the responsible thing for my
| project and would check back in.
|
| I transitioned my product to KiCAD in late December. I'll
| definitely check out how things are going when I start my
| next product later this year.
| by_Seeing wrote:
| Kerry is the best. Take us for a spin again and let us know
| if you're still encountering issues!
| cyberax wrote:
| Now it needs to be integrated with atopile.
|
| It'd be nice to be able to describe the circuit as simple code,
| compile it, and then get it in the mail a couple of days later.
| swamp40 wrote:
| That looks cool.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Q0XVpfW3Y
| Bluebirt wrote:
| WOW. These two projects must be the most esoteric hardware
| projects out there. Why should anyone use code for hardware?
| This flux thing seems only to be useful for simple hobby
| projects.
| cyberax wrote:
| Because designing hardware is a mess. Especially if you want
| to tweak designs a bit.
|
| I'd love to be able to design circuits the way I can do with
| 3D printing.
| dpcx wrote:
| Having never heard of Ultra Librarian, I thought this was somehow
| related to https://justgetflux.com/ and that they'd made a switch
| from doing color changing to hardware.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-03-06 23:01 UTC)