Show HN: InventHub – Visual version control for electronics design

Re:Show HN: InventHub – Visual version control for electroni... by contingencies on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @03:12PM (#22478299)

Interesting product as we do hardware and came from the software world. My team use git on Github. For versioning we use design names and version numbers in sequence within git, which may seem an antipattern but it is the approach we have evolved over time, as it allows us to identify a design with a short version number for mechanical engineering and integration purposes, work more effectively with outside people and processes, and sidestep more cleanly the built in RCS/VCS system in our CAM program.

We also do a lot of 3D design for mechanical parts, which is where I think this platform could really be useful. I would encourage you to consider expanding from electronics only to parts. There is definitely pain around BOMs, accounting, ordering timelines, ease of purchasing (external fabrication services as well as components), test processes (hardware equivalent CI/CD) and so on. Part files are often large and good integration with git-lfs[1] could be a killer feature.

Also, you may find this recent comment[0] interesting.

Do you have plans to monetize? I guess one option is you could offer the platform for free and then onsell fabrication and component services, which solves the 'how to get money' problem without SaaS sales challenges, as well as the 'every damn fabricator has their own (often poorly or undocumented) format preferences' (and tends to push the cost of mistakes on the customer) problem.

I believe there is a huge amount of value add possible in streamlining the learning process for new hardware designers who are as yet unfamiliar with available fabrication processes (applies mostly to parts, not PCBs) / design approaches (PCBs also) and their relative costs, timelines, and limitations. I would make this the core USP / selling point as it is unmatched globally. A flowchart like selection / comparison process for a given part based on base requirements (part volume, part material limitations, part material property targets, part cost limitations, target production speed, overall equipment budget, timeline, part lifetime and deployment environment, etc.), try to go deep and get extreme clarity on trends here, I strongly suspect it will pay dividends with new users.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370210 [1] https://git-lfs.github.com/

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Re:Show HN: InventHub – Visual version control for electroni... by usamaabid on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @03:44PM (#22478552)

Hi, Interesting approach even being anti-pattern it seems a very efficient approach.

> I would encourage you to consider expanding from electronics only to parts.

This a great idea we had parts database in mind and same visual support for footprints and symbols. I forgot to mention in my initial comment we are also working to develop 3D render of PCB's, Gerber and Parts.

> Part files are often large and good integration with git-lfs[1] could be a killer feature.

Yes we realized this recently and adding Git-lfs to not only handle large files but to also offer File Locking that will enable teams to collaborate bit more efficiently.

>Also, you may find this recent comment[0] interesting. Thanks for sharing this! Looking into it.

> Do you have plans to monetize?

Yes we do, we are initially planning to charge teams for access controls and self-hosted git, once all the features I have highlighted and use have mentioned are in play so it adds value in team collaboration.

>onsell fabrication and component services This is an interesting approach for pricing. I have added for discussion with my team. Let's see where it leads us but thanks for giving this idea :)

>I believe there is a huge amount of value add possible in streamlining the learning process for new hardware designers who are as yet unfamiliar with available fabrication processes (applies mostly to parts, not PCBs) / design approaches (PCBs also) and their relative costs, timelines, and limitations. I would make this the core USP / selling point as it is unmatched globally. A flowchart like selection / comparison process for a given part based on base requirements (part volume, part material limitations, part material property targets, part cost limitations, target production speed, overall equipment budget, timeline, part lifetime and deployment environment, etc.), try to go deep and get extreme clarity on trends here, I strongly suspect it will pay dividends with new users.

I totally agree with you this, I am putting this on as a core USP for product going forward wasn't considering this use-case of the product in this way. Our part database in not out yet because of this we are trying to sort requirements for this and design interactive Ui to bring this in play, I mean narrowing down parts and then ability to look for possible projects to get off the shelf integration help would make things so much similar and quicker.

Thanks for taking out time to share such in-depth feedback. It is really helpful for us in prioritizing features for development and is giving me another perspective to think about things.

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