Have Claude design an ESP32 Wi-Fi fan controller circuit for KiCad
A circuit designer with 40 years' experience asked Claude Opus 5.5 to design a Wi-Fi fan speed controller on an ESP32: a KiCad 10 schematic plus ESP-IDF firmware, while he would lay out the PCB.
Source
leptons on Hacker News · 2026-10-16
Written in our own words. Credit to the original author. Link checked 2026-10-23.
What they did
A circuit designer with 40 years' experience asked Claude Opus 5.5 to design a Wi-Fi fan speed controller on an ESP32: a KiCad 10 schematic plus ESP-IDF firmware, while he would lay out the PCB.
Result (as claimed)
Done in 15-20 minutes with reasonable part choices, after one redo to connect the schematic.
Tools they used
Cost: Claude Opus 5.5: from $4 in / $20 out per 1M tokens.
Set it up
Pick a contained repo or task
Start on a branch or side project where mistakes are cheap.
Install and configure
Set up Claude Opus 5.5, KiCad, ESP32, ESP-IDF. Read what it can run on your machine and limit permissions where possible.
Run it on a real task
Give it a well-scoped issue and let it work. Review the diff like any pull request.
Add guardrails
Keep tests and CI in the loop, and never let an agent push to main or touch production secrets unattended.
Copy the full setup prompt
Paste into your agent and it will walk you through the setup, asking before anything that sends, posts or spends.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Claude Code. Goal: Have Claude design an ESP32 Wi-Fi fan controller circuit for KiCad What the original author did: A circuit designer with 40 years' experience asked Claude Opus 5.5 to design a Wi-Fi fan speed controller on an ESP32: a KiCad 10 schematic plus ESP-IDF firmware, while he would lay out the PCB. Reported result (as claimed by the author): Done in 15-20 minutes with reasonable part choices, after one redo to connect the schematic. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50121969 Tools they used: Claude Opus 5.5, KiCad, ESP32, ESP-IDF Category: Dev & ops Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Codex. Goal: Have Claude design an ESP32 Wi-Fi fan controller circuit for KiCad What the original author did: A circuit designer with 40 years' experience asked Claude Opus 5.5 to design a Wi-Fi fan speed controller on an ESP32: a KiCad 10 schematic plus ESP-IDF firmware, while he would lay out the PCB. Reported result (as claimed by the author): Done in 15-20 minutes with reasonable part choices, after one redo to connect the schematic. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50121969 Tools they used: Claude Opus 5.5, KiCad, ESP32, ESP-IDF Category: Dev & ops Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Grok Bot. Goal: Have Claude design an ESP32 Wi-Fi fan controller circuit for KiCad What the original author did: A circuit designer with 40 years' experience asked Claude Opus 5.5 to design a Wi-Fi fan speed controller on an ESP32: a KiCad 10 schematic plus ESP-IDF firmware, while he would lay out the PCB. Reported result (as claimed by the author): Done in 15-20 minutes with reasonable part choices, after one redo to connect the schematic. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50121969 Tools they used: Claude Opus 5.5, KiCad, ESP32, ESP-IDF Category: Dev & ops Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
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Guides for this use case
How to design a PCB and electronics with AI · How to build hardware projects with AI agents · How to build a smart home and voice assistant with AI agents
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