

CircuitHub (YC W12) Aims To Be A One-Stop Shop For Electrical Parts - kg4lod
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/24/backed-by-y-combinator-and-google-ventures-circuithub-aims-to-be-a-one-stop-shop-for-electrical-parts/

======
marshray
From a guy who surfs for electronic parts on a tablet while falling asleep at
nights. Most vendor sites get _painfully_ slow for this.

First impressions:

The pop-over splash screen makes me want to reach for the 'close tab' button
reflexively.

If it's "the worlds fast free univeral parts library" I expect to see some
part pr0n right when I pull up the site.

I don't want to click [microscopic white-on-gray X] to close the popover, I
don't want to "Connect with Dropbox", and I don't want to click a magnifying
glass to "Browse the library".

Then on the main page I'm presented with a GitHub-like dashboard. I see big
videos for expensive CAD packages I don't own. I see 'LATEST ACTIVITY' which
is a long list of entries that are all like: _ibelimb updated domain template
HTSSOP to var documentType = "/template/footprint/0.9" 24 minutes ago_

Where are the parts?! Show me some parts!

OIC, there's a little grayed-out word "parts" at the top. Maybe that takes me
to some parts.

Yay! A list of parts! While writing this, I find Firefox can't select and copy
the text from this list. That's a pain, because often I have to paste part
numbers into other search boxes. I click on the first entry: Microcontrollers
NXP Semiconductors LPC1768FBD100,551 IC ARM CORTEX MCU 512K 100-LQFP

OK, a datasheet on the left, cool! Something on the right about dragging-and-
dropping to add a symbol and a footprint.

"Add components to this part" "Drag and drop domain models here to form
components." I don't get it, but maybe it makes sense if you're a heavy CAD
user.

I learn that I can expand the right-hand pane to cover where the datasheet was
on the left. I'm a little annoyed that I can't expand the datasheet on the
left to cover the section on the right. But I learn that I can move the
datasheet to the right and expand it to cover the left.

It seems the datasheet pages are just images? I can't Ctrl-F and search them.
But I find the 'download pdf' button on the first try.

The 'summary' section looks useful. It would be even more useful with a
parametric search.

Looks like a good start! Bookmarked.

~~~
kg4lod
Hi from Jonathan (cofounder). Thanks for the awesome detailed feedback. We
hear you and are already working on (or have it on the near-term roadmap)
almost all of this. I apologize for any frustration thus far. I really do.

Perhaps this will help until then: (1) You can click anywhere that isn't the
splash screen (any dark area) to dismiss it. (2) You can jump straight to
parts by URL <https://circuithub.com/parts> or (3) by the big button on the
splash screen in the lower right.

~~~
marshray
No apology needed. Just keep doing cool stuff and I'll check back from time to
time.

~~~
kg4lod
Thank you! I hope you will. Things are moving really quickly internally. In
other news, we fixed the splash screen. It now permanently dismisses so you
shouldn't see it too often. That was our intention we just didn't quite get it
right the first time ;-)

~~~
marshray
I confirm only seeing the splash screen once more. Thanks. :-)

I feel silly even suggesting this, but have you considered some kind of 'like
button' and a way to share comments on parts? I swear, I've never asked for
such a feature before, I don't even have a FB account! :-)

Is there somewhere else can we circuit dreamers and designers chat about parts
by number? For example, this search
<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=555+timer+comments> doesn't turn up much for
arguably one of the most well-known part numbers.

~~~
kg4lod
If I didn't know any better, I'd say you hacked into our white board
software... ;-) Yes! It's all coming.

------
unwind
When they say "shop", I thought it was going to be a specialized store for
_buying_ parts.

In fact, it seems to be more focused on becoming some kind of cross-
application database of parts information, storing data sheets and CAD models
for use in schematics design. Their own description includes the word
"library", which is more descriptive. I guess I'm (as a non-native speaker) is
intepreting the term "one stop shop" too literally, when the context seems to
allow it.

At least that's what I think, so far. Also, the only way to "log in" seems to
be to connect my Dropbox account to their site, which I found odd.

Also, since they promise free access, I'm not at all sure about the business
model here. Of course, lots of other people seem to be so I'm sure it's fine.
:)

~~~
napoleond
Agreed. I was expecting Octopart II, when I like the original Octopart just
fine. I hope these guys work together with Upverter and Octopart to become the
killer platform for online hardware development though--Upverter's existing
Octopart integration is good, but it sounds like Circuithub could be the
missing link since adding device footprints, different package styles and
pinouts etc. is still a PITA with just about anything (without even getting
into SPICE models).

------
jwr
Speaking as someone who designs hobby electronics, this is a very good idea. I
can't count the number of times I had to type things like "mcp23018 eagle
library" into google. And get no useful results except link farms. And then
have to create a library part in Eagle, which is a painful process, thinking
all the while that many other people are probably doing the same thing right
now.

I will definitely be contributing my libraries.

~~~
keenerd
You should try Kicad. Similar problem with libraries, except making new
footprints is my favorite part of the suite. It is a pleasure to use.

------
meaty
It's basically datasheets.com but somehow even more annoying.

I wouldn't trust a 3rd party footprint database either - the amount of times
I've seen people fuck up their first prototype by throwing some footprint they
found on the board and then realising the pins were wrong etc is insane. Saw 5
on the same board once!

~~~
benjamind
What would it take to make a footprint database you can trust? I would imagine
that community ranking/flagging of content could surely clean up inconsistent
or invalid designs making the database more reliable.

Would approved manufacturer accounts that contained all the parts from a
manufacturer make them more trustworthy?

~~~
meaty
To your second paragraph, 100% yes :)

~~~
benjamind
Well lets hope that the CircuitHub team can get the traction they need to get
the attention of the big manufacturers then.

There's certainly a chicken and the egg problem happening with this kind of
innovation right now. I know for a fact that there are many people at the
large manufacturers that know that symbol and footprint library management is
a major headache. They all want a good solution to the problem, but nobody is
willing to take the plunge on an as yet unproven system.

~~~
seddona
Hi Ben, I hope your well. Ideally we would like manufacturers to setup their
own accounts and approve their own lib's, that would be a big win for users.
Basically i think this problem has slipped between the cracks, the semi co's,
engineers, EMS houses, EDA vendors etc all palm it off to each other!

~~~
benjamind
Yeah I think that's definitely been the problem thus far.

There's a wind of change in the air though, I would definitely encourage you
to try contacting the large manufacturers directly and see if you can get some
buy-in. We've had some very encouraging discussions with some of them
recently.

Let me know how it goes, if you don't get any joy perhaps we can hook you up.

------
pgvoorhees
As a professional electronics design engineer, this is potentially a hugely
valuable service. A big chunk of time is, as @jwr states, spent creating CAD
representations of real parts. Other professional library services exist, but
they are very expensive. Well done.

------
bnewbold
"The world's free universal parts library" "There are 124 more parts"

A ways to go!

If footprint/symbol files and part metadata will be sourced from users, will
that communal resource be made available through an API and/or bulk data
releases? Or will it be controlled and enclosed?

The screencast has an old front page which mentions "Like Wikipedia[, we will
not charge for access]", so my hopes and expectations are high! Of course
Wikipedia is not a for-profit endeavor.

~~~
seddona
actually the API is public and the file format is standards based, we just
havent had time to document everything yet!

Agreed we need to do better with adding more parts, please free to help out
haha.

------
drone
Am I missing something? I realize I didn't login (I don't use dropbox), but
every part I click on has nothing but a datasheet and specifications? No
footprints, no symbols, etc. listed?

Unless this is a bug, perhaps it would do well to show that there are X
symbols and Y footprints for those of us just perusing? Additionally, only
getting reference to about 140 parts, I'd hope that you would've launched with
more than that.

~~~
seddona
we've had a bunch of new parts created today as people test out the site.
Please feel free to signup and contribute.

Here's a part that's pretty complete.

<https://circuithub.com/parts/MOLEX/87715-9006>

------
dear
I am wondering - how do these startups get the media (techcrunch in this case)
to write about them on their launch day. They just launched, have no business.
There are countless new startups everyday. Is it because of the relationship
(YC, Google Ventures)? Or do they pay for the articles? Or the journalists'
personal preferences? Or what?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Techcrunch literally covers every single YC start-up.

~~~
niggler
Is YC paying TC for the coverage or is TC doing it for the clicks and caters
to HN because many people here will look?

