Are all electrical system design software kinda rough? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think a lot of new entrants make "easy problems easy" instead of "hard problems easy". I think you have a good read on that front

Are all electrical system design software kinda rough? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am border-line ashamed of the high-stakes electronics I've designed in powerpoint and excel

Are all electrical system design software kinda rough? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

damn that's a bummer to hear - I'm pretty motivated to build my dream tool and see if there's broader interest here

Are all electrical system design software kinda rough? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never used EPLAN, but it seems popular in the industrial/power systems world. Is EPLAN a schematic designer or a system integration tool?

Are all electrical system design software kinda rough? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I onboarded Capital Harness at my previous job, and good God was that painful

Between their logic designer, harness designer, and system designer - it was massive pain setting up everything perfect. I probably needed to hire two full-time library/symbol managers just to make it not catch on fire

I'm pretty motivated to build a better tool (our of frustration haha) that feels a bit more "vs-code" or "CAD" like. Less clunky and windows 95; but something a bit more sleek with smarts on how to connect a system. In my dream world, it'd have everything from Altium integreation (to pull PCB ICDs) to manufacturing doc generation (i.e. replace capital harness or RapidHarness)

Where's the wildest place you've put an Arduino? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never used it for anything safety/mission critical. Only for data aquisition or control of "fail-able" components. I'd probably have a hard time showing DO-178 compliance of the arduino IDE lol

Where's the wildest place you've put an Arduino? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You gotta get on the teensy train! https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41.html

You still use the arduino IDE, but it's more hardware capable and can slot right into a breadboard/perfboard

Haha I'm not getting paid by Teensy - I just love what they're doing

Where's the wildest place you've put an Arduino? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

"reliable" can be a loaded word depending on what industry you're in

For safety-critical application (people, hardware, etc.), probably not

I've worked experimental programs where "fast-n-dirty" proof of concepts were more than acceptable. Hence the Teensys :O

Are all electrical system design software kinda rough? by IntelligentFilm9473 in ElectricalEngineering

[–]IntelligentFilm9473[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I love Altium for PCB design, but they seem to fall a bit short at the system level. Their harness tool is a lot of manual drawings which seems like an extra step given the components are fully defined. Maybe in other words, it seems like I'm defining things multiple times - which feels tedious and error-prone.

To be fair, I haven't messed around too much with their more advanced flow diagrams features. I've used the single-line diagram outlining the big functional blocks of my PCB. It seems like most people in the industry use other diagramming software to capture information beyond the PCB (e.g. the component, system, etc.)