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.
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?
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.
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.
Entry into the domain is hard because EE is incredibly mature in western countries.
By that I mean most work is heavily regulated, either defense, aerospace or industrial goods that must meet safety certs. Schematic and PCB design flow are heavily impacted and you can't go all tech startup go fast and break things on it.
Anything that's mass market consumer goods these days is outsourced to a shop in Asia or even Eastern Europe to design. At that point their labor is cheap that you don't care what they use.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
peteforde|2 years ago
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.
by_Seeing|2 years ago
Also, we're working fast to solve some of the issues you describe. Have you tried us recently?
bsder|2 years ago
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.
swamp40|2 years ago
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.
delfinom|2 years ago
By that I mean most work is heavily regulated, either defense, aerospace or industrial goods that must meet safety certs. Schematic and PCB design flow are heavily impacted and you can't go all tech startup go fast and break things on it.
Anything that's mass market consumer goods these days is outsourced to a shop in Asia or even Eastern Europe to design. At that point their labor is cheap that you don't care what they use.
engineer_22|2 years ago
polalavik|2 years ago
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|2 years ago
SV_BubbleTime|2 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.
cyberax|2 years ago
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|2 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Q0XVpfW3Y
Bluebirt|2 years ago
dpcx|2 years ago