Show HN: Spice simulation → oscilloscope → verification with Claude Code

49 points - today at 12:37 AM


I built MCP servers for my oscilloscope and SPICE simulator so Claude Code can close the loop between simulation and real hardware.

Source

Comments

andrewklofas today at 4:54 AM
Hit this exact wall six months back building Claude Code stuff for KiCad review[1]. First pass let Claude read .kicad_sch directly via grep/read. It happily invented pin numbers that didn't exist. Rewrote it with Python analyzers that spit out JSON, now Claude just reads the JSON, problem mostly went away.

Curious how spicelib-mcp handles models that aren't in the bundled library. Do you pass the .lib path as a tool arg, or does the server own a registry?

[1] https://github.com/aklofas/kicad-happy

iterateoften today at 3:13 AM
Beware. I had Claude code with opus building boards and using spice simulations. It completely hallucinated the capabilities of the board and made some pretty crazy claims like I had just stumbled onto the secret hardware billion dollar project that every home needed.

None of the boards worked and I had to just do the project in codex. Opus seemed too busy congratulating itself to realize it produced gibberish.

Scene_Cast2 today at 3:42 AM
I've found that having LLMs work with mermaid diagrams makes describing and modifying circuits less annoying.
Archit3ch today at 3:06 AM
Nice! Doing something similar with a Jumperless so that the model can reconfigure the circuit on the fly.
vomayank today at 12:44 AM
Very cool idea closing the loop between simulation and real hardware.

Have you found the MCP-driven workflow reliable enough for repeated testing cycles, or does it still need manual verification at key steps?

hulitu today at 5:07 AM
Measure with a micrometer, mark with a pencil, cut with an axe.