natashabaker

SnapEDA (www.snapeda.com) YC S15 | Redwood City, CA | Full Time

Electronics design tools. We help 1.5 million engineers to design faster. We are a team of 25, mostly all engineers of some sort (mechanical, electrical, software, industrial).

Hiring:

- AI Engineering Lead (Onsite)

- Backend Engineer (Onsite)

- Account Executive (Onsite)

- Fullstack Engineer (Onsite)

- Platform Engineering Lead (Onsite or Remote)

- QA Engineer (Asia)

- Product Growth Lead (Onsite or Remote)

Email us at info@snapeda.com if interested.

Looks awesome but how do you handle version control? Also, can permissions be set on who is able to modify vs. view/run a job?

If you’re curious to learn more about how Bluetooth was named, there’s an interview with Jim Kardach on the topic: https://blog.snapeda.com/2019/10/07/how-bluetooth-got-its-na...

Hi this is Natasha, the founder and CEO of SnapEDA. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. Search is a hard problem for components because there are so many interpretations of terms, and the need to have such a large database of parameters.

We created SnapEDA to be a free service for users like yourself, so this kind of feedback is helpful. We’re definitely making progress on that front, but we know there’s a long way to go and will continue to improve that!

This is referring to WIT's funding. As per the post:

In the short term, I will continue working on KiCad while pursuing as many avenues as possible to generate enough revenue to allow me to continue to work full time on KiCad.

This is what I love about the C256 project (https://c256foenix.com/). From an interview with her:

By limiting its resources, future developers will have to be clever to find new ways to create amazing things that early on we thought we could never do. Memory is cheap, so I could easily spend the same amount of money on a single chip that could have given me the chance to fill the memory space with RAM. But instead, I am choosing to use many chips with much lower capacity. It’s more limiting, but that’s the point."

SnapEDA | Director of Software Engineering | Full-Time | San Francisco

Help us build great data products for electronics designers and the global electronics component industry.

About Us

We are a small product-focused team that has built engineering tools relied upon by over 110,000 registered engineers to build their products more quickly. Whether it’s drones, airplanes, medical devices, and lots more, we break down the barriers in bringing new products to life.

We are currently looking for an experienced software engineer who can also help manage and mentor junior developers and bring greater maturity to our product and processes.

You can see more details and apply here: https://snapeda.workable.com/j/9CF0237921

Hi HN,

When designing circuit boards, engineers waste days making digital models (like symbols & footprints) for each component in their circuit board designs.

Some components such as connectors, are particularly challenging to create models for due to their non-standard shapes, pitches, pads and cutouts. Just one of these components could take hours to create, and requires deciphering complex computer-aided design (CAD) drawings, which can be very tedious and error-prone.

Today we’re excited to announce that we are making over 25,000 new free electromechanical models available to electronics designers, including connectors, switches, relays, and sensors, through a collaboration with TE Connectivity.

They can be downloaded for nearly every PCB design format, including Eagle, KiCad, Altium, Cadence OrCAD & Allegro, Mentor PADS, DXDesigner, PCB123, and more.

Unlike other models you might find scattered across the web, or even within your PCB design tool, we do things a bit differently: 1. We show which standards the model was made with (IPC or datasheet recommendations) 2. We run each model through our automated verification technology to catch common manufacturing issues before they cause costly prototype iterations 3. We allow engineers to discuss potential issues on each part publicly for the entire community to see.

For any hardware designers out there, we’d love to know what formats, features, or part categories you'd like to see next!

Hi HN,

When designing circuit boards, engineers waste days making digital models (like symbols & footprints) for each component in their circuit board designs.

Some components such as connectors, are particularly challenging to create models for due to their non-standard shapes, pitches, pads and cutouts. Just one of these components could take hours to create, and requires deciphering complex computer-aided design (CAD) drawings, which is a very tedious and error-prone process.

Today we’re excited to announce a new partnership that is making over 25,000 new free models available to electronics designers. By partnering with TE Connectivity, we've been able to bring thousands of elecromechanical models to designers for free, including connectors, switches, relays, and sensors.

Best of all, we've made them available in nearly every PCB design format, including Eagle, KiCad, Altium, Cadence OrCAD & Allegro, Mentor PADS, DXDesigner, PCB123, and more.

Unlike other models you might find scattered across the web, or even within your PCB design tool, we do things a bit differently: 1. We show which standards the model was made with (IPC or datasheet recommendations) 2. We run each model through our automated verification technology to catch common manufacturing issues before they cause costly prototype iterations 3. We allow engineers to flag potential issues on each part publicly for the entire community to see.

For any hardware designers out there, we’d love to know what you’d like to see next!

Signed up for Loom last week and it's pretty awesome! I like the fact that it's one click to record/upload/host. The embedded video of the speaker is cool too. My team is currently working on a set of internal training videos using it.

Thanks. OCR isn't 100% accurate but does a pretty good job. So we recommend double-checking before generating. Is your second point to be able to re-use a symbol for another part in the same family but that uses a different package type?

We find that it saves at least 30 minutes for most parts, since it automatically configures the symbols, defines their electrical characteristics, completes the symbol-to-footprint mappings, and links them to verified footprints.

That being said, InstaBuild is just a small feature of SnapEDA, a website used by over 60,000 registered electrical engineers around the world to download ready-to-use symbols and footprints. Our goal is that InstaBuild will become obsolete as our database or ready-to-use models becomes comprehensive.

And yes! We do have plugins for PCB design tools available at https://www.snapeda.com/plugins.

We understand this concern which is why we build the vast majority of content.

We also work with component manufacturers to help them create or translate their content to various formats. Here's an example: https://www.snapeda.com/parts/4N32-X001/Vishay/view-part/.

User-generated content is supported due to popular demand, but we deprioritize it in favor of semiconductor-generated, or SnapEDA-generated content. We also have an automated verification checker that exposes the quality of UGC on each part page.

Yes for sure! Challenge there is standardization across datasheets in terms of which parameters are listed and how. Increasingly chip companies are seeing the need to make their data more accessible and standardized so I'm sure it will get easier.

That would be very cool! Actually one of our users did something similar =) https://jasiek.me/2016/09/29/creating-footprints-from-actual...

The good news is that we've already done the work to extract pin dimensions, and then applied IPC calculations to them to make the footprint. So for standard ICs it's not necessary.

Very true, that would make our jobs much easier!

Everything uploaded is licensed under the Creative Commons with Design Exception upon download. This means engineers need to credit the source/author when reposting the content online, but as soon as it's integrated into a design it becomes the downloader's IP. This way, if you're working at a big company, you can license the product under the terms of your choosing.

We have a great product called InstaPart (https://www.snapeda.com/instapart) to help with that, or if it's already in our library you can download it free!

Is this being professionally assembled? We make all new footprints to IPC standards and take into account the tolerances of the lead width, toe, etc. And these differ between manufacturers even for something as simple as an 8-pin SOIC. If you're just hand soldering, then it may not be a concern to get this specific.

Engineers can contribute their own models on SnapEDA. They are then available to download in all formats. However, for quality reasons, we create the vast majority of models.

Thanks for this, and that's a great idea.

Because there is no common format that all electronics CAD vendors support, we have created our own. We then export to the various PCB design software formats.

Here's an example of how we've worked with Vishay to make the symbols, footprints, and 3D models available in one place: https://www.snapeda.com/parts/SFH6319T/Vishay/view-part/. Please stay tuned for simulation models!

Hi HN!

As a team of 10 electrical engineers at SnapEDA, we know how frustrating it is to gather all the data (like symbols & footprints) needed to make a circuit board. Although we’ve built up a large database on SnapEDA, there may be times when the part you need can’t be found.

That’s why today we’re launching InstaBuild! InstaBuild is based on the underlying technology we use internally to make parts, and we’re releasing it today as a free tool to the engineering community.

We used a computer vision framework that's a bit more sophisticated than OCR (which we also used) because we detect cell placement and table lines to properly extract data

Here’s how it works:

1. The tool extracts pin data from datasheets. It tries to understand the function of each pin (in/our/power, etc.), and then auto-configures the symbol based on our published symbol standards.

2. We then map the symbol to a verified, IPC-compliant footprint.

3. The part is ready to download to your desired PCB design software format (ex: Eagle, Altium, KiCad, Cadence, Mentor, etc.).

Would love to get feedback on where we should take this next. Thanks HN!

SnapEDA (YC W16) | San Francisco, CA | Full-Time | ONSITE | https://www.snapeda.com

SnapEDA is looking for talented engineers to join our team. We're an early-stage startup that provides a web platform for hardware designers to build circuit boards faster. Over 60,000 hardware designers rely on us to design everything from robotic tea machines, to electric airplanes.

We're currently looking to add a software engineer to our SF team. Our ideal candidate would be focused on data automation for electronics design content initially and would be eager to branch into other areas over time. To see an example of the types of automation tools we make, see: https://www.snapeda.com/instabuild.

Stack: Python, Django, PostgreSQL

Contact: natasha[at]snapeda.com

SnapEDA | Software Developer | San Francisco, Toronto | Onsite, Full Time | https://www.snapeda.com

SnapEDA is the Internet's first parts library for circuit board design. Our search engine is used by over 35,000 registered hardware designers to design faster by downloading ready-to-use component models.

We’re looking for a software engineer with a background in EDA or CAD development, and who thrives in a fast-paced environment, to join our team. Our stack is mainly Python, Django and Postgres.

See our postings on AngelList for more info: https://angel.co/snapeda/jobs

For those using Heroku - any workarounds to at least put the app in maintenance mode? It seems their entire platform, including API, is down.

You can now convert your Eagle libraries to KiCad (and other formats) on SnapEDA.

As many know, Autodesk moved Eagle to a subscription model last month. As a result, many have been asking how they can translate their Eagle files to other formats (particularly KiCad).

I think the subscription model will bring much-needed features. But I also understand that it is (for many) a showstopper. Hopefully this free tool is helpful to those for whom this is the case.

This looks interesting. How does it differentiate from other web simulation tools like CircuitLab, Multisim Live, and PartSim?

Ok figured it out. It was actually an issue with cloudflare being affected by the Dyn issue, rather than a heroku-ssl problem. Thanks for the help.

In that case I get:

;; Got SERVFAIL reply from 10.17.100.2, trying next server Server: 10.17.100.2 Address: 10.17.100.2#53

server can't find <sslendpoint>.herokussl.com: NXDOMAIN

Yes we did dig @208.67.220.220 -t CNAME <ssl-endpoint>.herokussl.com. And we got the following SERVFAIL error:

; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: <id> ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION: ;<end-point>.herokussl.com. IN CNAME

;; Query time: 1226 msec ;; SERVER: <server>#53(<server>) ;; WHEN: Fri Oct 21 12:27:55 2016 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 44