Re:Show HN: An LLM-Powered PCB Schematic Checker (Major Update)
by wafflesfreak on Sunday January 04, 2026 @07:49PM
(#46494074)
This is exactly why the first version of our tool worked with netlists only. We've since evolved to parsing the full KiCad project and generating a netlist from it so we can also extract schematic-specific metadata that doesn't make it into the netlist (designer notes/annotations, component positions, etc.)
Re:Show HN: An LLM-Powered PCB Schematic Checker (Major Update)
by wrs on Sunday January 04, 2026 @09:14PM
(#46494608)
This looks great, but I want to know when LLMs will be useful for generating schematics rather than just checking them! It’s such a letdown right now to jump from doing firmware with Claude Code to drawing schematics manually like it’s 2022. :) When does KiCad get its little assistant pane on the right?
Re:Show HN: An LLM-Powered PCB Schematic Checker (Major Update)
by klysm on Monday January 05, 2026 @10:01AM
(#46499526)
Schematic generation doesn’t really make sense to me because the cost of a problem going unnoticed is much more significant in hardware design than software.
That said, schematics (as opposed to netlists) don't seem to be a practical I/O format yet. It did generate a KiCad schematic file when asked, but it was pretty bad (penguin on a bicycle level).
Anyway, somehow there does seem to be some electronic tools training happening, becuase I tried this maybe a year ago and it was pretty hopeless.