Flux is a browser based app for designing circuits and PCBs with a built-in AI assistant called Flux Copilot. It’s meticulously designed, incredibly fast, and is built from the ground up to enable agile hardware development.
Hey ProductHunt community!
We're thrilled to introduce Flux - the first PCB design tool with a built-in AI assistant, Flux Copilot.
When you open Flux, Copilot is waiting for you in the chat. Brainstorming how to approach a particular PCB design? Struggling to fix a stubborn bug? Just ask, and Copilot will respond instantly with suggestions tailored to your project—you can even ask it to wire up schematics or review a design. It's not just a tool; it's your design partner.
Under the hood, Copilot coordinates a team of AI models that collaborate to interpret, research, analyze, and respond to your query. When you ask a question, it remembers your chat history, accounts for project requirements, references relevant datasheets, checks parts availability, and vets comparable options before responding. By drawing on this rich context, Copilot manages its array of specialized models and evaluates results in order to generate the best response to your query.
Some of our favorite use cases for Flux Copilot:
🧠 - Brainstorming - Copilot can help get you started quickly by understanding the requirements and providing guidance. Example prompt "@copilot I'm designing a PCB for a medical device that measures heart rate and temperature. Can you give me the list of components I will need?"
🔧 - Talk to Datasheets - Instead of combing through hundreds of pages of datasheets to find answers, you can simply ask Copilot a question. Example prompt "@copilot can U2 withstand intense operating temperatures even without a heatsink?"
🤝 Connect Parts Quickly - Copilot can reference datasheets and not only recommend connections, but make them. Example prompt "@copilot how would I connect these parts to make the LED flash at 1kHz?"
🔎 Part Research - Tell Copilot about what you want to build, your requirements and constraints, and it will be able to make part recommendations. Example prompt "@copilot I want to build a PCB that uses a solar panel to charge a single cell LiPo battery. I want to measure ambient pressure with a microcontroller and send that over WiFi. What are all the components I would need?"
You can also access popular Copilot prompts by right clicking on the canvas > Copilot > selecting from the following shortcuts:
🧐 Check Decoupling Capacitors - Decoupling capacitors can be confusing. If you’ve ever wondered whether a part needs them, whether you have enough of them, or if your values are correct, Copilot has you covered with a ready-made prompt.
💬 Explain: Not sure what’s happening in a circuit? Just select the “Explain” prompt and Copilot will give you a detailed explanation of your schematic.
♻️ Recommend Replacement: Worried about your part’s availability? Select this prompt and Copilot will search through thousands of components to find the perfect replacement for your circuit.
Some other ways Flux enables modern hardware design workflows:
🔄 Reusability: Tap into the power of community-driven templates, modules, and example projects. Amplify your impact by leveraging existing work.
👥 Collaboration: Hardware design requires teamwork. Flux enables real-time, browser-based collaboration with controlled permissions and automated version control. Work seamlessly with teammates, clients, manufacturers, and more.
🔧 Parts and Modules: Our intuitive parts system, with integrated schematics and symbols, simplifies your design process. Modules allow for easy reuse of design sections, speeding up your workflow.
📚 Unified Library: Access thousands of community-made parts or add your own, sharing with the community if you choose.
📏 Innovative Design Rules: Flux’s proactive design rules help you avoid mistakes, ensuring manufacturability from the get-go.
💻 Built-in Simulator: An integrated online LTSpice simulator engine runs alongside your design process for immediate feedback and evaluation.
I've been excited for years about the trend of tools-for-builders becoming online and multiplayer, no matter the complexity...Google Docs for writing...Figma for design...Replit for code...and now circuit design with Flux! Very cool to see this AI assistant from the team.
@rajiv_ayyangar thanks for the hunt and agreed! We want to take the tools for hardware into the future and make them more accessible.
Our hope is that Flux Copilot makes it even easier for anyone, anywhere to get their hardware designs produced.
@rajiv_ayyangar I’ve been using it on a side project and it is awesome! Way more intuitive to learn than KiCAD or Altium.
I went from zero knowledge to a simple board in an hour or so!
Such an exciting product. After working on Hardware products for the last 8 years and a stint in electrical engineering in school, I've definitely seen my fair share of terrible tooling. Hardware folks should have great tooling too!! Thank you @lance_cassidy and @matthiaswagner for putting some love into this =). Especially love the quick part-connection and built in copilot for part selection.
I have been following this tool online for a while. You definitely have my vote cause this will change hardware engineering for all! Keep up the good job!🚀🚀
As someone who has gotten his hands dirty with soldering and built many small hardware projects, I would say this is game changer. There are many software products that exist but most of them don't support Mac completely or are very very old
The biggest pain is while testing if you destroy a part, you have to wait for days/weeks to get it. During covid my oscilloscope took 4 months to come from china!!
If I was still building hardware stuff, I would definitely use this tool
@patnishubh we love that it just works on Apple products and local devices too!
When you get another chance to build hardware, please let me know what you think :)
Congratulations on the launch of Flux! This browser-based app is a remarkable addition to the field of electronics design, especially for those involved in circuit and PCB creation. The integration of the AI assistant, Flux Copilot, is particularly exciting. It's impressive how Flux is not just another design tool, but one that's meticulously crafted to cater to the needs of agile hardware development.
WHOA! Now this is cool. Even if you dropped in ChatGPT, the context in which you dropped it in is great. That being said, how on earth did you train this? And a really fun video!
Flux