KiCadRoutingTools

After the OAI demo, like many others, I tried to use KiCAD through computer-use. This doesn't produce great results. I have found the best results through a mix of Happy[0], this repo, and computer use to fill in the blanks. It is _really_ good at the stackup and part config, but creates some absolutely terrible routes. It will snake tiny traces through some SMD pins even though there is plenty of space available outside of the component. When it hits an obstacle, instead of creating 2 45 degree turns, it does 10~30 small ones creating some sort of weird crooked arc. I have produced a couple of boards for testing this way and they are generally functional. I have tried KiCadRoutingTools[1] as well which does seem to create routes that make more sense. Anyone any better experiences with these or similar tools? [0] https://github.com/aklofa

> changed I2C to SPI for no reason Heh, tongue firmly in cheek: there's a good reason to change from I2C to SPI. I2C's pretty shit in comparison :D More seriously, I've had interesting mixed results. I had a hobby-maybe-commercialize-next-year Christmas lighting project that I started in March (if I start in March, this will definitely be ready for Christmas!) and got 90% of the way there... and then life got busy and it's sat there untouched with the holiday season coming up again quicker than I'd like. I threw Fable at it first to assess what's done, not done, look for schematic mistakes/improvements (it rightfully pointed out that the cheap LDO I was using was near its limits and suggested a better part). Opus did a reasonable job of swapping out the LDO, putting reasonable values on all of the pull-ups/pull-downs, etc. Some of the lab

That layout does not look very good: https://github.com/drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingTools/blob/main/do... I'm curious if this even works at high speed though I'm seeing what appears to be length-matched traces. Is the tool using an EM simulator in the process?

I've been working on several PCB projects, and agents are very helpful for automating many parts of the workflow. They're excellent for schematics. Complex routing, though, is still a human's job for now; I've watched Freerouting fall on its face many times. If you're doing six-layer high-speed DDR routing, AI won't solve that for you today. However checkout EDA tools https://github.com/l3wi/claude-eda/ https://github.com/drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingTools

This is the one that I'm building on top of: https://github.com/drandyhaas/KiCadRoutingTools