[HN Gopher] SparkFun A La Carte
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SparkFun A La Carte
Author : zdw
Score : 180 points
Date : 2020-10-28 15:40 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sparkfun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sparkfun.com)
| numpad0 wrote:
| $950 for a single press of autorouting button!?
| sonium wrote:
| To my knowlege there is no practical way to automate placement
| AND routing of a PCB design (so basicaly only the a netlist as
| input). Yes, there are autorouters, but they work under the
| assumption that there is already a sensible placement of the
| compontents. Is this still true? At least Mentor Graphics &
| Altium don't seem to have any solutions for this.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not sure if it's true, but SparkFun's platform still appears to
| require manual design, just it looks like their staff will do
| it for you. To test-drive it I selected an ESP32 with a
| humidity/temperature sensor, and it quoted a board cost of
| ~$35, with a one-time ~$1k design fee.
|
| So presumably they give the component list to a real human who
| does the board layout for you.
| StavrosK wrote:
| Why would you want to? Routing is the fun part!
| DHaldane wrote:
| This is still true for all off the shelf autorouters.
| dariosalvi78 wrote:
| seeedstudio has something similar:
| https://geppetto.seeedstudio.com/
| canada_dry wrote:
| > Geppetto is a ground-breaking cloud-based design tool that
| allows anyone to design electronics, you don't need to know
| about resistors, capacitors, inductors, routing paths or
| anything EE to design your own board. Seeed has embedded the
| Geppetto electronic design tool into its platform, so users can
| go straight from creating a design to manufacturing in one
| session.
|
| > Geppetto make it possible to create an custom Arduino board
| for under $50, including design to pcb manufacture and
| assembly.
|
| I haven't looked at both closely, but it looks like ALC is a
| broad component design service, and Geppetto is constrained to
| a set menu of components that readily fit together.
| cushychicken wrote:
| My immediate thought would be how cool it would be to make
| programming/test jigs with this service. Doesn't seem super
| feasible if you're not allowed to place components, though.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I'm confused on the wording about the design fee. Is the design
| fee for purely design so the manufacturing setup cost is embedded
| in the margin of the PCBA or is the design fee design +
| manufacturing fee combined?
| davidkuhta wrote:
| Just mentioning for those interested, but dissuaded by the $949
| design fee comments in this thread, SparkFun is providing a
| temporary discount:
|
| > To encourage you to give ALC a try, we're offering 50% off the
| design fee on all new orders through 11:59 p.m. on 12/31/2020
| with promocode: ALCSPARKFUN50
|
| Disclaimer: Not at all affiliated with SparkFun, but I'm a fan of
| fun with sparks (magic-smoke, !smokey-the-bear).
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I'm really wondering who this is aimed at that a 50% discount
| would make any difference. As an individual hobbyist, this is a
| service that provides maybe $50-100 worth of value to me at
| most. If I was looking to start some kind of businesses in my
| garage, my very first priority in putting the business together
| would be making sure either I or a partner knew how to do this
| ourselves, so the value add would be ~$0. If I'm a cog in some
| big corporation, I can probably put $949 on a corporate credit
| card just as easily as $475.
| amelius wrote:
| Also, if you work for a big corporation, would you not prefer
| to design boards yourself?
|
| I'm wondering what the target audience really is ...
| true_religion wrote:
| Probably researchers working with grant money, or people in
| corporate R&D with tight deadlines, but not so tight
| budgets.
|
| They also save you from having to learn how to actually
| design the board yourself, so if you don't know how to do
| that with modern tooling, then you can pay $1000 for
| someone else to do it per board, rather than hire someone
| out of your project budget to do it.
| jstanley wrote:
| This is a really cool idea.
|
| The $950 design fee seems steep now, but it's totally plausible
| that they'll be able to automate the board layout, so we can
| expect this number to drop relatively quickly once competitors
| apepar, towards the marginal cost of providing the service (which
| would be basically 0).
| savrajsingh wrote:
| can't comment on the specifics of their implementation but the
| idea behind it is a great one. I currently have a pretty
| impressive project that is still trapped and works in-breadboard
| and I want to make a custom arduino mega shield out of it -- but
| I need more activation energy or a lower bar, I this project
| helps lower the bar.
| leon_sbt wrote:
| I ordered from Sparkfun multiple times and everything worked out
| great. I wonder if they are slowly going to expand their reach to
| be a la protolabs for all the B2B PCB design/prototype deals.
| Protolabs did a quarter billion sales last year I think.
|
| Clearing $1k from semi automated work sounds a lot less tedious
| than packing 500 bags with a $2 sensor. I always feel like they
| lose money on sub $10 orders.
| kovek wrote:
| SparkFun staff answered my questions about hardware thoroughly,
| probably a few lectures worth within 5-10 replies. That moment
| is always in my heart! I don't do hardware much though, I was
| curious about making a ring. Litho.cc made something similar to
| what I wanted to create.
| DHaldane wrote:
| Great to see this project go public! Seems pretty good if your
| requirements fit inside the spec.
|
| $949 is a decent chunk of change, but it is half of what the very
| similar Geppetto service costs and Sparkfun seems willing to also
| sell you the native CAD files (for an extra $150).
|
| Very curious to see how much real use this will get.
| detaro wrote:
| I'd guess the price is initially also to give them room for
| review and as a rate-limit. Do fewer projects guaranteed well
| at first, adjust price with experience and capacity.
| fest wrote:
| One potential market this seems to corner is software engineers
| without much hardware background willing to dip their toes in
| product design or proving some concept for a startup (think of
| adding a touch of interactivity to museum exhibit or kickstarting
| another thermostat company).
|
| With current PCB production prices I also sometimes just order a
| one-off PCB that wires together a few modules, as it's just more
| efficient use of time.
|
| OT: my snarky side would present this news as: geez, JavaScript
| developers will get their way and be able to get a solution that
| has sensor X and LED on it without learning anything about
| hardware :)
|
| But it's a good thing- tinkering with Arduino when it just came
| out did set the course for career change I wanted, and maybe this
| will do the same for someone else.
| ChrisGammell wrote:
| I'm sure it will get better over time (assuming the blocks are
| algorithmically placed), but this example board does not inspire
| much confidence:
|
| https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/custom_pages/9/2/5/alc-block...
|
| I assumed there would be some "person behind the curtain" to
| this, as well (design checking, touching up connections, making
| the board look a bit nicer).
| blackguardx wrote:
| I think this product/service is targeting the "if it works, it
| works" mentality. The aesthetics just have to be a bit better
| than a mess of wires.
|
| It brings up an issue, though. What if it doesn't work? How is
| their customer going to troubleshoot the board?
| ChrisGammell wrote:
| I agree, these are all small, low speed designs without many
| constraints.
| conductr wrote:
| I have prototyped a device that consists of 1 uno WiFi, 4
| megas, 16 8 channel relays, and 104 actuators. How do I go
| about finding a "person behind the curtain?"
|
| I have no idea if what I built even makes sense. It works and
| it's the way I was able to solve each problem I faced. I could
| use a service like this (I think? Not clear to me) because I'd
| love to have this thing be on a board instead of a massive ball
| of yarn. Is this a service to accomplish this?
|
| If I have to hire someone, what profile am I looking for? EE
| seems too generic
| brk wrote:
| "PCB Design Service". After that, you will likely be looking
| for "certification services" in the form of UL, FCC, CE, etc.
| brk wrote:
| IMO this is not a service to be used to make shippable product.
| It is basically an advanced reference design tool. They do the
| work of making all the right component connections and getting
| everything on a board so that you can focus on software and
| basic functionality testing.
|
| If your alpha design works as intended, and you realize you
| didn't leave anything out or make other simple common mistakes
| you can get the $150 files that you can import into your design
| system and then nudge components around as desired. Or, you can
| send it off to a more boutique board house to layout, knowing
| that you are not going to have to come back later and make
| major disruptive changes.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Are you referring to how it was laid out? Can you cite
| specifics for those of us who don't know what to look for?
| tesseract wrote:
| The ESP32 module being away from the edge of the board, with
| the ground plane completely surrounding its antenna, is the
| first thing that jumped out at me. Typically RF modules like
| that are intended to be placed overhanging the edge of the
| board, or abutting the edge with a large copper-free area to
| the left and right of the antenna.
|
| I don't think that's indicative of an unfixable issue per se,
| but it's not a great look in the promo photo.
| ChrisGammell wrote:
| Yep, similar sentiments from me. And the ESP being away
| from the edge/enclosed in copper? Very easily fixable if
| this is done by an algorithm. I would think the micro block
| is the first thing being place anyway.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Interesting that they're still using Eagle. I was using Sparkfun,
| Eagle, and KiCad back in 2013 and before when it was still with
| Cadsoft:
|
| https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-and-setu...
|
| Even then, it was pretty limited: 100x80mm board size maximum,
| only 2 layers, 2 schematic pages, for personal use only, but
| Kicad was pretty hard to get configured. Altium, Cadence etc.
| were still the industrial behemoths.
|
| But now Eagle is among the behemoths, owned by Autodesk. It
| requires a subscription and an Internet connection, the
| subscription is free for one year, and then costs $495/year to
| continue to get access to your files on Autodesk's cloud. One
| hazard I remember from projects at school in 2010 was that the
| school had an education/commercial license from Cadsoft (the
| original manufacturer) and you were essentially unlimited in the
| schematics and PCBs you could create. However, if you created a
| design on your laptop in the freeware version, opened it with a
| school computer using their paid license, you could no longer
| open it on your freeware license - that's a pretty old bug (or
| feature, depending on your definition. I trust that when Sparkfun
| sends back Eagle files, they're able to be opened by people with
| a "Fusion 360 Personal" subscription Eagle license.
|
| Kicad is much, much easier to use today, especially after the big
| development push from CERN. And it's open source, so whether
| Sparkfun would want to extend it with Python scripting, write a
| plugin, or modify the software itself, something like this could
| be trivially automated.
|
| The choice of Eagle seems to be obsolete by half a decade, when
| you're looking for a open-source-hardware electronics CAD
| package, especially if you'd want it to be scriptable and
| extensible, as I'm sure Sparkfun ALC is (I can't imagine they're
| paying someone in Colorado to route traces for $950). On the
| other hand, there's a lot of institutional inertia when all of
| Sparkfun's early designs were created in Eagle. Sparkfun is one
| of the big drivers of hobbyist Eagle adoption. I wonder if any
| early discussions of how to implement ALC were guided by an in-
| house Autodesk rep...
| amelius wrote:
| How is automatic placement and routing on Eagle versus Kicad?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Both have an autorouter that does a reasonable job, though
| many PCB designers scoff at using one for most tasks. Kicad
| has a nice push-and-shove manual router, which Eagle didn't,
| though looking back I see they added one a few years back.
|
| Both placement systems just drop all your parts into a grid
| sorted by reference designator, Eagle doesn't (didn't?) have
| automatic placement optimization for minimizing ratsnest
| length, Kicad does have that, plus various plugins to lay out
| your board like the schematic, auto-place similar groups of
| components from the schematic hierarchy, etc. Both have trace
| length matching and can add a meander to reach a given length
| automatically, Kicad has a built-in impedance calculator.
|
| A critical difference is that Kicad isn't limited to
| 2-layers, and for small-run high-speed digital work a 4-layer
| board makes a lot of sense these days and significantly
| simplifies routing. When all your power and ground signals
| and decoupling caps just go to a via and then to the internal
| plane, there's a lot less work to do, and a lot more space in
| which to do it!
| amelius wrote:
| Are you sure about Eagle being limited to 2 layers?
|
| I found this document from 2012, which demonstrates how to
| do 4 layers in Eagle:
|
| http://brc-electronics.nl/Generalfiles/Report2.pdf
| zachm0 wrote:
| LeifCarrotson was referring to the fact that the free
| version of Eagle is limited to 2 layers. You have to pay
| to get more than that.
| Impossible wrote:
| _The number one question we've received about ALC is: "Why can't
| I move the blocks around?" While we could absolutely design a
| tool that allows you to poke and prod down to the mil, there are
| already piles of tools that do that_
|
| I tried to spec out a quick small handheld console with two
| analog joysticks and four buttons and it was basically impossible
| to make something useful because of this constraint. I understand
| auto-layout for non-input components but it makes input useless
| except for complete debug components.
|
| For reference I was trying to build something similar to Adafruit
| PyGamer (https://www.adafruit.com/product/4242) with a second
| analog stick.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I can find no details on the site about where the board
| manufacturing and assembly happens. Simply from a standpoint
| about caring about labour practices, and workers rights, this is
| concerning. Is this happening using US prison labour? Chinese
| labour under a government that is actively committing genocide
| against the Uyghurs? I hope not, but with that info obscured,
| there's no way to know if using this service passes a basic
| ethics smell test.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| This is a good start. Unfortunately as of now they are only
| offering Arduino microcontrollers. I'd like to see them add
| MSP-430 and ARM in the future.
| kam wrote:
| They list Artemis and SAMD51 as microcontroller options, which
| are both ARM Cortex-M4.
| redwoolf wrote:
| A design fee of $949 makes this out of reach for small projects.
| Cool concept though.
| makerofspoons wrote:
| I was hoping for something more along the lines of Seeed's
| Fusion PCB/PCB assembly service where you could get a quick
| prototype board with parts from a list of available components.
| I'm impressed by Sparkfun's software though and I hope that as
| the service evolves it gets cheaper.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Not only is a design fee of $949 pretty high, but they're also
| upcharging _significantly_ for the components they 're placing.
| They charge $20 for an ESP32, for instance; the modules are
| $2.99 at Digi-Key.
| lights0123 wrote:
| Where are you seeing them on Digi-Key? The Microcontrollers
| section[0] only has other mCs with 32 in the name, and I
| couldn't find anything other than devkits.
|
| [0]: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/embedded-
| microcon...
| tesseract wrote:
| They're under RF Transceiver Modules, not Microcontrollers.
|
| https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/rf-transceiver-
| mo...
| lights0123 wrote:
| Ah--DuckDuckGo took me to a search page that included
| every category _except_ RF Transceiver Modules.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Note: They are offering a 50% discount on the design fee
| through the end of this year. The discount code is on their web
| page.
| samwillis wrote:
| What is the license for the finished pcb design if you use this
| service?
|
| I believe most Sparkfun designs are "Creative Commons Share-
| Alike" [0], but they are a little confusing as to their
| interpretation of that license [1]. My reading of that license is
| that if I base my commercial product (consumer, not for the
| hobbyist market) on one of their designs but make changes to the
| pcb design (such as additions and the shape) I would have to
| release my design to the public (which I would not want to do)?
|
| But here [1] they seem to contradict that and suggest all you
| have to do is attribute some of the design to them?
|
| I ask because this seems to be a really good way to get to a
| mk1+n prototype but obviously before going to mass production you
| are likely going to want to make changes, potentially large ones.
| If your final (very different) design has a lineage back to a
| CCSA licensed design then technically your final design would
| have to be shared for free.
|
| Obviously the CCSA license is important for them to protect their
| core business, the hobbyist market, and ensure competitors don't
| just steel their designs.
|
| [0]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
|
| [1]: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1852
| tesseract wrote:
| - The copyrightability of PCB layout designs is somewhat
| ambiguous since they are ostensibly purely functional. (I'm
| sure someone can chime in here with precedent.)
|
| - If Sparkfun created the original CC-SA design, CC-SA does not
| prohibit them as the copyright owners from later licensing
| their work under different terms as well.
| blackguardx wrote:
| PCB designs are absolutely copyrightable. They are treated no
| different than wood block prints or lithographs. It is
| similar for IC production masks.
| tesseract wrote:
| IC production masks have their own special category of IP
| protection, "mask work rights", precisely because it was
| uncertain whether they could be copyrighted.
| samwillis wrote:
| So I have just done a little reading. It seems a circuit
| itself cannot be copyrighted, but a visual representation
| of it can be. It can however be patented.
|
| I think this means that sparkfuns files are copy-write with
| a CCSA license. However the circuit design itself is not.
| blackguardx wrote:
| You are correct. A circuit design cannot be copyrighted.
|
| A PCB design can be, however. The PCB design is the
| actual layout of the copper traces on the board. In the
| industry, it is referred to as "artwork" and is
| copyrightable as such.
| samwillis wrote:
| Just to add to this having had a play with the service, for it
| to be useful more precise positioning of key components such as
| connectors/buttons and the mechanical design of the PCB (shape
| and fixing points) would be needed.
|
| If I am paying nearly 1000$ for a prototype PCB it would be to
| put into a product prototype with mechanical design
| considerations. It's that intermediate prototyping stage, after
| breadboarding but before full design for manufacturing. A form
| and fit prototype to test ux and consumer fit.
| RIMR wrote:
| This sounded great till I saw the design fee.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| This is seriously cool. Yes it is "early" and I expect it to
| evolve but I like where they are going.
|
| A number of boards I've done recently were essentially PCB wiring
| harnesses for a bunch of breakout boards. Why? Because it was
| easy and quick and I could get from idea to something that could
| be shown to work quickly. Also for a lot of things most of the
| circuits are already out there and its just a matter of putting
| things together.
|
| Things I would like to see in the future:
|
| 1) A "box" form factor so that things could easily be put into a
| chassis. Ideally the box would be an STL file so you could print
| it to the height as needed.
|
| 2) A "ui" mode which is basically the board design tools but with
| all indicators and controls, and a constraint that once you have
| everything laid out the way you want it has a single wiring
| harness between it and that "main" board.
|
| This is also something that Crowd Supply could knock out I
| suspect if they were inclined to do so.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Notice the boards look this random because you can't move the
| blocks. Not sure why they charge for the autorouter.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There is likely quite a bit of extra logic on top of what a
| traditional autorouter does and a human in the loop to correct
| / QA what the software does as well as a sort of insurance in
| case a built board fails and has to be reworked.
| jahnellp wrote:
| Hi! Thanks for the comments - we are so excited to get this into
| the wild. If you plan to try it, be sure to use the promo code
| ALCSPARKFUN50 for 50% off the design fee.
| jstanley wrote:
| Can you comment on how much effort is being put into automating
| the board design, and how soon you think the design fee is
| likely to drop?
| jahnellp wrote:
| I think you are asking exactly what efforts are put into the
| board once someone designs it in ALC. To be honest: it
| primarily goes through the same general steps as most of our
| boards - ALC Operations Team designs it; PCBs are ordered;
| once PCBs are received, it goes through the pick & place,
| reflow, inspection, and packaging; finally, the boards are
| sent using our standard fulfillment/shipping. Does that help?
| jstanley wrote:
| I was more asking about "ALC Operations Team designs it" -
| the obvious goal would be for you to automate as much of
| this as possible, I just wondered how much work (if any)
| has gone into that so far, even if it's not being used yet
| on customer boards.
| dkarp wrote:
| How the fees seem to work:
|
| Design fee: $949 - One off
|
| your Eagle files: $150 - One off
|
| Per board fee - priced per component including installation
|
| It seems like you are paying someone to manually design the board
| and link any components to the controller. I guess it's limited
| to only simple designs where each component just connects to the
| controller. I like how the software keeps track of pins and power
| available
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