[JKCalhoun]

Why, yes I am.

I know Ben is having some fun, perhaps making a valid point, with the burning component on the breadboard. I think it does underscore a difference between software vibing and hardware vibing—crash vs. fire.

But in fact vibe-breadboarding has drawn me deeper into the electronics hobby. I have learned more about op-amps and analog computing in the past two months in large part thanks to Gemini and ChatGPT pointing the way.

I know now about BAT54S Schottky diodes and how they can protect ADC inputs. I have found better ADC chips than the ones that come pre-soldered on most EDP32 dev boards (and have breadboarded them up with success). These were often problems I didn't know I should solve. (Problems that, for example, YouTube tutorials will disregard because they're demonstrating a constrained environment and are trying to keep it simple for beginners, I suppose.)

To be sure I research what the LLMs propose, but now have the language and a better picture in my mind to know what to search for (how do I protect ADC inputs from over or under voltages?). (Hilariously too, I often end up on the EE Stack Exchange where there is often anything but a concise answer.)

5V USB power, through-hole op-amp chips… I'm not too worried about burning my house down.

[nospice]

Both Gemini and ChatGPT have a pretty comically wrong knowledge of op-amps. They usually recommend outdated chips and are confused about circuit topologies. I was looking at this last week and it hasn't changed. I asked them to suggest and evaluate microphone circuits and they were just bad. I would really, really recommend reading some human-written text if you're learning about that.

I can't think of any reason why you'd want to use Schottky diodes to protect op-amp inputs. They have high leakage currents and poor surge capabilities. Most op-amps have internal protection diodes, and if you need some extra ESD or overvoltage protection, a Schottky diode probably isn't the way.

I'm not taking an anti-LLM view here. I think they are useful in some fields and are getting better. But in this particular instance, there's a breadth of excellent learning resources and the one you've chosen isn't good.

[MisterTea]

> I can't think of any reason why you'd want to use Schottky diodes to protect op-amp inputs

My first guess would be the fast switching time of the Schottky makes them appear useful for responding to transient events.

[rcxdude]

They also have a low forward voltage and an actual current rating, so it can be easier to trust that they will clamp a voltage within range indefinitely.

[rcxdude]

Probably because most of the training data includes it. A huge amount of hobbyist electronics writing on the internet has advice that hasn't been updated since the '70s.

[JKCalhoun]

Thanks, I have read a lot of human-written text (and actual books from the day) in addition to the LLM feedback. Again though, had I ignored LLMs altogether I would have barely progressed in the past two months. I think. They seem to act as an "idea board" of sorts—sends me out then looking for others to validate (or not) what they're spouting.

"Schottky diodes to protect op-amp inputs…" Not op-amp inputs, ADC inputs (which may well come from an op-amp output though—I am playing with analog computing after all).

[marcosdumay]

Those ADC probably also have protection diodes, take a look at the datasheet because you may be better with other options, and very likely can use diodes with a larger band gap if you really need bulky protection.

[jacquesm]

> I have found better ADC chips than the ones that come pre-soldered on most EDP32 dev boards (and have breadboarded them up with success).

Depending on your setup: beware of your ground and realize that breadboards are an extremely bad fit for this sort of application. It's hard enough to get maximum performance out of a good DAC on a custom designed PCB, on a breadboard it can be a nightmare.

[JKCalhoun]

The breadboard has validated the communication between the ESP32 and ADC chip (over I2C).

It's enough that I've now moved to KiCad layout and will wait for the boards to come back to see if the actual ADC data I am getting is more or less linear, noiseless…

[jacquesm]

Ah ok! Thanks for that bit of clarification, it makes a world of a difference, yes, you can use the breadboard for that, but - based on my own experience - if you want to actually use an ADC on a breadboard you're going to be in for a world of hurt as soon as you exceed some very low threshold frequency of updating and you're going to be fighting all kinds of weird bias effects. The parasitic capacitance of those breadboards is just terrible.

[elictronic]

Large metal planes uniformly spaced. At what point is the parasitic capacitance just a capacitor.

[jacquesm]

And an antenna, and a coil. Breadboards are great for slow and digital up a few 100 Khz, above that you are going to have the occasional interesting challenge / hairpulling session.

[peteforde]

I just wanted to vote with my feet and say that my experience echoes yours closely.

Modern coding agents have a remarkable grasp of circuit design and the net result is that they keep pushing me to learn more, faster.

I do find that I often have to specify that I only want parts that are "active on Digikey" because otherwise it will recommend obsolete parts. However, I consider this just like reviewing code generated by an LLM. You don't get a pass on reading datasheets or verifying statements.

I recently had GPT 5.2 spit out a progression of circuits that can amplify a dynamic mic signal to line level, simple to complex, with the intention of finally learning how good amplifiers work. Adding transformers and gain stages with the different OPA family parts and hearing the hum disappear and noise floor drop is the best kind of education.

A tip: BAT54SW specifically is the best part for protecting your pins.

[antonvs]

> vibe-breadboarding has drawn me deeper into the electronics hobby.

Exactly. I'm a life-long software guy, but I've dabbled in electronics at various times. But typically I'd hit walls that I just didn't know how to get past, and it wasn't easy to find solutions. If I'd had an LLM to help, I'm pretty sure I'd have become much more deeply involved in electronics.

[__MatrixMan__]

Know the risks, prepare for them, get a little burned now and then, have fun... sounds like a recipe for learning to me.

[JKCalhoun]

Sometimes sarcasm is so subtle…

Irrespective, "letting the magic smoke out" has been a part of the electronic hobbyist's vernacular long before vibe-breadboarding. (Been there many times.)

[cbdevidal]

Just this morning I was vibing with Gemini to make a battery-powered stove monitor to sell that I might call "Yes I turned off the stupid stove" :-)

Gemini was suggesting the circuit design and of course I'd do the final work myself, but I find vibe-circuit-building to be quite valuable.

[cluckindan]

Easiest way to get this foolproof would be to put an induction loop around the power cable and use the reading from that as a proxy for on/off state.

It would catch any case where the stove is drawing power, irrespective of possible failure modes of the stove itself.

[cbdevidal]

That's the idea

[PunchyHamster]

monitor home's phases and just learn AI how to spot patterns to identify each device. I think there was a product doing that already..

[cbdevidal]

Yes there is

[robocat]

Is your market people with anxiety/OCD about whether they turned off stove?

Your idea would be a hard sell to anyone paranoid enough, since they won't trust your monitor.

An alternative would be to install a safety key switch or a magnetic safety key. The paranoid can then check they have the key on them when they leave the home (like the lady worried about her hair dryer - see below).

Or perhaps a camera facing the oven switch?

Scott Alexander wrote https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-ma...

  The Hair Dryer Incident was probably the biggest dispute I’ve seen in the mental hospital where I work.

  Basically, this one obsessive compulsive woman would drive to work every morning and worry she had left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house. So she’d drive back home to check that the hair dryer was off, then drive back to work, then worry that maybe she hadn’t really checked well enough, then drive back, and so on ten or twenty times a day.

  It’s a pretty typical case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it was really interfering with her life. She worked some high-powered job – I think a lawyer – and she was constantly late to everything because of this driving back and forth, to the point where her career was in a downspin and she thought she would have to quit and go on disability. She wasn’t able to go out with friends, she wasn’t even able to go to restaurants because she would keep fretting she left the hair dryer on at home and have to rush back. She’d seen countless psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, she’d done all sorts of therapy, she’d taken every medication in the book, and none of them had helped.

  So she came to my hospital and was seen by a colleague of mine, who told her “Hey, have you thought about just bringing the hair dryer with you?”

  And it worked.

  She would be driving to work in the morning, and she’d start worrying she’d left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house, and so she’d look at the seat next to her, and there would be the hair dryer, right there. And she only had the one hair dryer, which was now accounted for. So she would let out a sigh of relief and keep driving to work.

  And approximately half the psychiatrists at my hospital thought this was absolutely scandalous, and This Is Not How One Treats Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and what if it got out to the broader psychiatric community that instead of giving all of these high-tech medications and sophisticated therapies we were just telling people to put their hair dryers on the front seat of their car?

  But I think the guy deserved a medal. Here’s someone who was totally untreatable by the normal methods, with a debilitating condition, and a drop-dead simple intervention that nobody else had thought of gave her her life back.

[cbdevidal]

That's not the target customer I had in mind, but that might be good. Was thinking of those who have elderly forgetful parents, or my wife. Or my son--we were nearly late to church because as we were pulling out of the driveway, "I think I left the stove on." Sigh.

I know there is a market for it, there are several competing products, but none use an inductive loop for easier install.