[sdiy] AI code generation

[Jonatan Liljedahl]

I had great help from an LLM (don't remember if it was Gemini or GPT) to
repair an old shortwave receiver. It guided me step by step until we found
a faulty transistor, and helped me pick a replacement.

But for circuit design, the results have been mixed, and wasted more time
than it saved..

/Jonatan
http://kymatica.com

On Fri, 24 Jul 2026 at 13:30, cheater cheater via Synth-diy <
synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:

> I see some bad experiences with AI and analog electronics. Have any of
> you tried any of the following approaches?
>
> 1. Rather than use an image of a schematic diagram, provide it with a
> plain-text netlist + BOM and have it parse that
> 2. Use a "research" type AI, which you feed documents. Feed it books
> and papers about the kinds of things you are doing, and then ask it
> questions about your circuits
> 3. Point the AI to trusted resources such as "better quality" forums
> or even this mailing list's archives in order to get it to answer
> questions
> 4. People have mentioned giving the thing access to be able to measure
> some signals when they were working on DSP code. When working on
> analog hardware, has anyone tried to give it access to AD/DA and a
> digital oscilloscope, and build your circuits on a board that has all
> (or very many) nodes tied to an i/o multiplexer so it can measure
> things? (I think azonenberg's open source oscilloscope software can be
> helpful here as the oscilloscope interface)
> 5. I wonder if some form of modular pick and place machine would be
> helpful for building circuits. Put all the parts on DIPs, have sockets
> that can open and close, have the thing connect things... basically a
> big breadboard style thing. Leave it alone in a dark room for a month
> and do other stuff in the meantime.
>
> Has anyone tried spending some time on focused learning on how to use
> AI for analog circuits? Maybe other forums might have answers, like
> idk, eev blog or diy audio or gearspace or kvr. It would be
> interesting to see what others come up with, I think this sort of
> knowledge is going to be shared across silos but sharing between silos
> only happens when someone does that on purpose.
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 11:31 AM Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I didn't think it would need an AI to point out that most USB audio
> dongles are s**t 😄
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of rrsounds
> via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> > Sent: 24 July 2026 08:39
> > To: Eric Frampton <eric at ericframpton.com>
> > Cc: SDIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> > Subject: Re: [sdiy] AI code generation
> >
> > Using Claude to design audio DSP on my Mac Mini, I ran into a situation
> where the audio I could hear was occasionally cutting out, with some pretty
> bad digit-itis squwawking. I wanted to blame the DSP, but Claude couldn’t
> find an error in the code that would likely result in such a series of
> glitches. Since AI is only as good as the questions you give it, I
> carefully described what I was hearing and it was able to discern by
> probing into OS system signals that the USB driver for my cheap AES-out
> dongle (or the dongle itself) was probably at fault. I attached my Yellotec
> PUC-2 in its place, and the problem disappeared entirely. And the audio
> sounded clearer, too, so I guess the dongle was f*cking with me.
> >
> > David Reaves
> > David Reaves Audio.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > > On Jul 24, 2026, at 6:08 AM, Eric Frampton <eric at ericframpton.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Also yeah, Claude’s rate for diagnosing hardware issues is pretty bad
> - maybe 10% of the time it gives me something useful, but when it is
> useful, it’s spot-on.
> >
> >
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