First-time PCB designer vibe-codes a working e-ink dev board with Claude, pays €130 to fab it
a6m--zero · reddit · 2026-09-11
A developer who had never designed a PCB let Claude (Fable 5) fully generate his first board: an RP2350-based dev board driving a 1.54" e-ink display, with four buttons, I2C and GPIO breakout.
His rules: no manual edits or verification, and every pre-manufacturing problem solved by the model — he was purely the end customer. The prompt was a short paragraph specifying the Pico 2350, display, button layout, and use of the KiCad MCP.
Fable 5 worked autonomously for a few hours and produced a design, but picked two wrong components (the SPI flash and the e-ink driver transistor) and suggested parts out of stock at LCSC — all caught when uploading to JLCPCB and fixed in a few back-and-forths. He paid €130 for 5 boards, verified no 3V3-to-ground short, plugged it in, and it was recognized; software written with Opus 5 ran flawlessly.
He says he's happy with the result but feels little accomplishment, and plans to keep vibe-generating hobby boards while properly learning PCB design. He also notes KiCadRoutingTools looks faster than the MCP flow for routing.
More from coding & agent
- One-person companies are about the org chart, not headcount: humans judge, agents execute — ciguleva · 2026-10-28
- OATs: open-source toolkit turns everyday objects into personality-bearing agents — Stefania_druga · 2026-10-28
- Dev: local coding dropped from 100% to 5% in a year as cloud agents take over — bytebot · 2026-10-28
- Open-sourced 501(c)(FREE): agent-built free back office for US nonprofits — gralston · 2026-10-28
- Grok Bot 1.0.0 early build reveals Shared Bots, service accounts and team workflows — XFreeze · 2026-10-28
- Anne Griffin hosts 20-person SF salon on the product decisions behind AI agents — annetgriffin · 2026-10-28