nice board

Artist's impression of ... something?

Jeroen Belleman

Artist impressions of electronics are often hilarious. Trace routings are the instant giveaway; they make no sense.

I don't understand why people pay for absurd stock images when they could use a real picture of one of their real boards. Probably because they hire web designers who can't tell the difference.

Our new web site had that problem, full of absurd stock images. I made them use pics of real boards and schematics.

Abstract images of PCBs are the popular-culture vision of technology. Weird.

might be AI ..

This was generated on a circa 2016 Tesla M40 in about 20 seconds based on the original image as a guide:

They're about $80 surplus now which is a nice value for an older GPU with 24 gigs of RAM.

I would fire, and maybe harm, anybody who laid out a board that bad.

One more AI PCB hallucination, this one looks sorta realistic, if you squint:

You can select XY tiling with this software and tile them out to cover a wall!

I select X-axis tiling on this one and it cranks out very usable model train layout/LEGO diorama backgrounds for my nephew:

Typical crazy, idiotic traces. Like a car with the wheels on the sides, or a shower facing the wall.

Yeah, I'll start getting concerned when it can be sensible with layouts. But that'll be some other kind of software, this doesn't "know" anything about electrical rules or any of that.

It stitches together fragments of other images until some other AI that also doesn't know anything about the rules can't easily distinguish it from a training image, whaddya want.

There is auto-place and auto-route PCB sofrware - most layout programs do that - but both tend to be terrible.

Hmmm. I also detest web pages with things that move. Get rid of that useless animated arrow. It's irritating.

Jeroen Belleman

I had them add the arrow so people would realize to scroll down, where to go next. But I didn't suggest that it should hop up and down like that.

I general, the web has got very annoying lately. Popups, ads, overlays, opening new windows, and more ads.

Youtube is worthless now.

I don't currently have a project that could justify the purchase of an IR camera. However, I am curious. If it's convenient for you, I would be interested in specs and a sample photos.

Video of warm PCB traces (1 amp) viewed THROUGH the PCB using InfiRay T2S+ Thermal Camera ($339): "How To View Current Flow In PCB Tracks! A New Way To Trace Short Circuits?"

Infi Ray T2S+ data sheet:

Included is the now obligatory AI buzzword salad: "AI-Temp Algorithm Analysis"