Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)

I'm working on cataloging open source hardware designs.

When I'm starting a new hardware design, I find myself pulling up familiar boards (like Adafruit or Sparkfun's dev boards) as often as the chip's application note. I sometimes prefer a full reference project so I can get useful context like which voltage regulator they used or how the USB port is connected.

But, it's kind of an awkward process because I'll have to download the design files from Github and open it in the native CAD software (Eagle, for example).

I've been toying with how to solve this. I made a script to crawl Github for open hardware designs, then generate a schematic and interactive BOM for each design. Now, hopefully, you can search for "ESP32"[1] or "WiFi"[2] or "Bluetooth"[3] and get a number of designs to view in browser.

[1] https://www.openappnote.dev/tags/esp32/1 [2] https://www.openappnote.dev/tags/wifi/1 [3] https://www.openappnote.dev/tags/bluetooth/1

Cool idea. It would be nice to be able to quickly pull up a part in context in various designs across the internet to answer “how did other folks solve this on a board that works?”

Thanks! 100% agree. It's the "board that works" part that might be tricky with open source designs.

Possibly but I’d be willing to bet a decent proportion do in fact work