[sdiy] AI code generation

Sat Jul 25 18:20:36 CEST 2026

Eh, there's no reason to be dismissive of what engineers are doing in
China, no countries have had the same manufacturing and design
capabilities since probably 2000. There were tiny holdout niches, but
by now that's almost fully gone too.

On Sat, Jul 25, 2026 at 4:18 PM Mike Bryant <mbryant at futurehorizons.com> wrote:
>
> Imagine, a whole series of AIs that think it is okay to remove the opto-isolator from a MIDI input because it still works without it (sic).
> ________________________________
> From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of cheater cheater via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> Sent: 25 July 2026 14:17
> To: Jonatan Liljedahl <lijon at kymatica.com>
> Cc: SDIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] AI code generation
>
> Honestly I wonder if Chinese models trained on the Chinese language
> space would be better for electronics design, given how much of it is
> being done over there and nowhere else...
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 10:11 PM Jonatan Liljedahl <lijon at kymatica.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > 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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