Show HN: Inventhub – Electronics product design collaboration platform
inventhub.io
inventhub.io
Unfortunately, this seems like a killer to https://kitspace.org/ (__assuming__ it turns out to be a good repository any public facing projects). Kitspace seemed like a very good effort. I am assuming for public facing projects you would integrate with distributors and manufacturers for purchasing... since... well, you're already doing some wizardry.
on that note above about projects in general: - Are you going to capitalize on the manufacturing, purchasing of parts, assembly, etc of PCBs designed on your platform? -- At a minimum: dumping a list of parts into DigiKey, integrate with PCBway... -- At a maximum: providing a 1-click software integration with many PCB manufacturing houses, all parts ordered (abstraction from distributors), hand stencils or PCBA, etc.
I hope you go further than simply some small amount of recurring revenue from $50 and ~$200 accounts... well, because... seems like you're almost there.
Definitely, the recurring revenue is the starting point, we are in process of integrating with supply chain (basic integration is already rolled out — the minimum you suggested)
We are working towards the maximum with a two way model giving pcb manufacturers to create a tool for estimation and order creation, while giving users a one click interface to get estimates and order parts/boards.
It will be for both public facing projects and private projects, to purchase the boards + parts.
We're new to hardware development, but our hardware engineer has been using Altium 360, and I've been using Eagle for parts of the project.
Altium seems like a VERY capable tool. I don't know about it's version control, but commenting , BOMs, component library, it has all of that stuff.
We're based in Sydney, Australia, and I know Altium has an office here, so perhaps that's why we hear about Altium so much, but I'm curious what is the big differentiator between InventHub and Altium, as it seems they have the same features you list.
Definitely, Altium is a very capable tool for electronics design. I totally agree the features like commenting, BOMs, component library is in Altium 365.
With regards to differentiator, first being we support same tools and utilities for all formats (Eagle, Altium, KiCAD, PADS, OrCAD and Allegro). The Altium 365 is tied to just their ecosystem is specific to just managing single file PCB projects. Whereas, with inventhub you have flexibility to manage data however you want, it let you go beyond storing designs or components or visualizing in the web (e.g. adding specs documentation, instruction manuals in the project, or attaching more data to components like your internal stock for reference)
- Inventhub let you have consistency in the process of development and gives you a single space to manage all kind of data.
- Secondly, its all in the cloud, today it gives you single source to maintain data (for all ECADS). With inter-portability between formats we take reusability of trusted designs and assets a step ahead.
- With our version control the collaboration is effective and it coupled with the the utilizes let's you focus on just the design and development vs. figuring out how to configure.
Do let me know if this answers your question and give you the understanding of differentiating factor. I would be happy to jump on a call to walk you through the platform with use-case as well.
a) When opening a project, the file names are often long, and therefore truncated with "..." at the end. Unfortunately, that cuts off the file extension, and there's no "show filename on hover" or similar to see it. You have to open the file to see the filename.
b) There doesn't seem to be a viewer for Gerber (.gbr) files, which I understand...perhaps that comes later. But, it would be useful to at least recognize the filetype and have an icon for it, even if the viewer is just a text viewer.
c) The "explore" menu could use a "pinned example project" that shows off all the functionality. For example, I tried opening lots of projects to see what the BOM viewer would look like. But, none of the projects (and I opened a lot of them) had a BOM file to look at.
Again, looks terrific, and seems to fill a big hole.
a) This makes sense, definitely a hover/show file name button should be there to facilitate with the complete name. I have added this to our improvement list and we will soon be rolling out an update on this.
b) We primarily targeted the parsing of ECAD formats, and their repacking. We have gerbers support planned for next quarter so you will soon be seeing a gerber generator (from source files) and a gerber viewer within inventhub.
c) This is a great idea, will definitely prioritize this as it could help someone understand platform with a fully populated project.
I'm all for for making PCB design akin to software development.
Moreover, I believe there is an opening for HLS like language for board design to unify schematics and spice space.
I looked into EDA Solver, I looked into SkiDL.
SkiDL seems to be a bit more alive, and ready for practical use.
With regards to HLS like language, our next step over the year will be creating a universal and open format parser to translate designs back and forth between multiple formats and eventually getting it editable using a language, modular visual editor or a complete circuit editor in the cloud.
Have looked into SkiDL definitely a great tool, will explore more and would love to hear your thoughts more on this as to how we should approach this further.
I myself don't have an idea how to best implement it. Just only one thing in certain is that modern EDA GUI tools, with, or without automation are disastrously bad at things software devs get for granted: clear, and illustrative record of changes, branching, and merging of work, "Do-Not-Repeat-Yourself," easy design reuse, scripting, and automation, intellisense, and a lot of contextual information, etc.
Some people start with board design, and make schematics from it, some start from the other side, schematics, and PCB design made from it.
The challenge in later is that you need much more than netlist to make a PCB, and having it automated will be very far from trivial, needing a mechanical CAD like constraint system, and OOP + log based data structure (lookup Solidworks.)
It's much easier to get netlist in reverse, from the PCB design, but then you loose programability.
KiCAD is pretty much the one, and only serious open source EDA, so further direction of work will depend on what the KiCAD devs think. My advise, get in touch with them.
I think the biggest challenge will be assuring reverse propagation of changes, so SkiDL code can be modified by manual changes to the netlist, and tools further down stream like board design.
Are you planning to add something like GitHub actions? My thinking being that there's a lot of DRC that happens on PCB designs that could be automated into a CI.
The first level is to be implemented on every design update upload, to check DRC, ERC and custom rules defined by the company in the form of a script.
Second is to have a runtime checker like CI to run rule checks on production/pre-production builds (including DRC, ERC and again custom rules/industry standard compliances etc.)
We are moving forward with the goal of having an open parser, a universalized parsing language for all formats to be generalized in and build utilities on top. Thinking beyond just ECAD leading into, EDA and eventually MCAD.
We envision Inventhub to eventually become a design data dashboard, letting you pull say simulation data, production QA data, gaining more insights beyond just visualization with cross-platform integration and open API for more utilities.
I am Usama, Founder & CEO of inventhub.io, a platform for securely managing and collaborating on electronics design data, is excited to announce a set of tools which provide an improved way for hardware companies to manage their PCB design projects and allow early collaboration on the data of those projects.
Its been a year since I have posted an early version of Inventhub here on HackerNews (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22476514) with just a visual version control and couple of ideas. Over the year, we were able to work with hardware developers and electronics product teams to get feedback, improve product and add new features.
We just recently launched a completely revamped product with a new website. Inventhub started as a git based version control with utilities to visualize ecad design and changes (diffs) in the web.
In our new release we introduced a complete electronics product design data management and collaboration to enable true collaboration on PCB design projects. Tools and their benefits include:
* Visualization and Discussions on PCB Documents: The design view of a pcb document on the platform helps in bringing a shared understanding where everyone has access to view, discuss and understand the document and its data. Inventhub supports visualization on formats such as Altium Designer, EagleCad, KiCad (more coming soon)
* Git based version control and tools: Having one database is a single source of truth which allows everyone to work from the same single database that is updated with every change from everyone who has access to it. All data is accessible in a centralized and secure cloud space. The information is visible to everyone instantly with its history.
* Access controls and sharing engineering data: Inventhub wants to help make it easy for the reusability of documents with multiple stakeholders. Organization access controls on the platform enable team based collaboration and sharing the latest version of the document and having access controls on top of it helps in early communication.
* Release management and Manufacturer Space: Easily Create, Manage and share a release by marking a point in history of a version controlled project. A manufacturer space is provided in addition for accessibility of project and design data. This helps to communicate production details easily to external stakeholders.
* Bill of Materials: Smart BOM brings a design-to-cost development approach. Create, edit and keep your bill of materials updated with every change in your project. With smart supply chain integration, find prices, generate cost estimates, get parts availability all in one place. This synchronized integration lets your team use the right parts and enable your procurement team to have up-to-date information at every stage.
* Components Library Manager: Inventhub wants to make it easy to manage components libraries and their life-cycle in centralized cloud storage. This gives teams and organizations easy access to trusted reusable assets and adding supply chain integration on top gives designers and procurement teams to see real-time/up-to-date component life-cycle data, pricing and availability.
I would really appreciate if you guys can look at the new website along with new product features and provide us with your feedback. We are keen to hear what do you guys think about the product now?
First, you should consider IP. People who do this commercially don't want to put all their IP on an unknown platform. If you are hosting, you can make guarantees, you can be transparent about your identity, you can show audits, you can work to increase trust, right now none of that is present. An alternative option is a deployable on-premises solution.
Second, a lot of money flows in this industry through iterative fabrication. You can work to tap that cashflow by integrating with fabricators. There is an opportunity to do the hard work for people in translating their BOM and design files to fabricator-anticipated formats, translating fabricator business process information (fulfillment times, design checks, etc.) in order to become a platform for iteration. This could be an awesome service in and of itself without the whole hosted design iteration thing.
Third, component dealers. You can obtain forward-looking metrics about component selection from switched on component dealers, who can also allow people to secure rare stock through your platform. Some of these deals are very large.
Basically, it's a chicken and egg problem. To get fabricators you need users. To get dealers you need users. To get users you need to add value while reducing risk and presenting a trustworthy and stable platform. Platform businesses are hard to build.
Ultimately you may do well to reconsider your approach and instead of building a platform business just build the visual diff, BOM, fabricator DRC, fabricator order status and other industry-specific software components necessary for someone like Github to acquire you and roll out value to a large user base. This may be much quicker to return and a much larger return.
Good luck.
With regards to IP, we definitely ran into this concern couple of times. To address this we are in the process of getting SOC 2 Security Audit and post its report on the platform. Definitely agree on the identity part, will definitely have it up soon. We have the on-premise version in our roadmap for Q2 this year.
This is an interesting insight about iterative fabrication. We are thinking along these lines, for manufacturer space e.g. generating and translating the BOM and design files fabricator anticipated formats within Inventhub from source files. - Adding manufacturers directly into the partner space for placing order could be an added revenue source. We can probably come up with a utility that facilities manufacturers with their work and have them connect with our user-base. (Like cost estimation utility from source files etc). Agreed on the part of generating revenue from connecting customers and manufacturers within the platform.
- We did build a basic supply chain integration in the BOM to help user find parts from multiple component dealers, compare prices and choose the best one. Will definitely look into the rare stock supply.
- I agree, we did consider building an add-on to github or gitlab, but overtime we have ran into some engineering problems that made us realize it has to be done ground up. Also, the future vision we have does make more sense for us to host data on our platform. We did engineer the architecture in a way to port the utilizes to any git under-base to keep this acquisition door open. This is not a priority though with where we see ourselves headed though.
Thank you so much again for sharing your feedback.It is indeed really helpful.