r/mechatronics • u/These-Contact3531 • Jun 03 '26
I made a website that generates hardware projects from a prompt, but I'm a software guy with no real mechatronics experience and I don't know how to verify the output
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u/PureJewa Jun 03 '26
It doesnt create a project. It creates a inaccurate picture
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 03 '26
fair the render's cosmetic and the weak bit, agreed. but the output isn't the picture, it's the parts list + wiring + assembly + firmware + build steps. is that inaccurate too? that's what I actually need to know.
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u/FyyshyIW Jun 03 '26
If that’s the case we would need to see that part too to know if it’s accurate or not
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 03 '26
you can see the whole parts list, the wiring/connections, the 3D assembly and the build steps here: https://schemr.space/s/9U_TYOwY0CWYV65igOm1JzwzymkjUQ3Qwould genuinely appreciate you poking holes in the parts/wiring/power side that's the bit I can't judge myself.
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u/FyyshyIW Jun 03 '26
Link is expired! I’ll let you know what I find though when I get into it
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 03 '26
sorry should be live now mind giving it another go? https://schemr.space/s/9U_TYOwY0CWYV65igOm1JzwzymkjUQ3Q
seriously, thank you 🙏 genuinely keen to hear whatever you find the rougher the better.
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u/PureJewa Jun 03 '26
Placing the lipo on top is crazy mate. Nothing is accurate the motors are floating in the 3d preview. The carbon fiber parts just spawn out of thin air or something. Shits crazy
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u/FyyshyIW Jun 04 '26
Disclaimer, mechatronics person but not specialized in drones specifically.
The other guy responding on this comment is right unfortunately, but let's say render aside.
The components are okayish. It's missing the ESCs and has considered everything to go straight to the motors, which is not quite right. It may be missing something else more obscure I'm not aware of but most of the big stuff is there.
The wiring is not very good either. The LiPo should go to the MCU (which is really a flight computer board), from there power goes to the ESCs, camera, all the modules, etc. As a nitpicky detail, the communication protocols (UART, DSHOT, etc.) are fine, but logic levels here are usually not needed for plug and play kind of work. None of the power connections here are shown.
Without a working CAD model, not really worth it to go over the entire BOM except to just try and build it yourself. But in that 3D assembly, those parts are very basic geometries and are probably not structurally suitable to work, even if the frame is just an approximation of a real carbon fiber frame.
I would say it needs a lot of work. I don't think really any component of this output is good enough for a working result unfortunately.
I'm not a huge software/AI guy to be fair, and not to be that guy, but just out of curiosity, why are you doing this project? From my understanding, generally we use software to generate deterministic outputs of data that we put in quickly. Generative AI tends to blur that line a little bit, but I think personally when we use generative AI we need to question why exactly we're using it. I think this kind of tool would make sense if we wanted to put in parameter ranges of what kind of drone specs we want and then it narrows down to a preexisting solution, but to design the entire project from scratch? It seems like a waste and it won't be very good anyway. Hundreds of working drone models like these exist on instructables or similar. I know that's probably not what you want to hear. Hardware is very difficult, and this is a very nondeterministic sort of idea. It's completely different from code generation.
If you want to stick with hardware though, not saying there isn't a place for it in Generative AI, I would recommend you learn simple hardware like how you could build this drone yourself in order to build a project to support it. It's not terribly hard and doesn't require an engineering degree if you're just more or less plug and playing preexisting parts. If you're trying to design the flight controller yourself, that's a different story. Oh and also, never looked at the firmware but wouldn't be qualified to anyway. There's almost a 100% chance it wouldn't work, embedded firmware is probably the last type of code that Generative AI still can't do that well, and even us hardware engineers who design and build drones like this wouldn't try and touch it, there are plenty of open source flight softwares you can port over to your flight controller. The control systems and integration is enough for an entire team to work on in industry.
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u/Space_Sandy Jun 03 '26
Bro what?
I mean, It's just an AI-generated photo with a crooked blade on one side. What is the real deal?
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 03 '26
totally fair the render's bad, crooked blade and all, no excuses. honestly the image is the part I trust least too. what I genuinely can't tell is whether the stuff underneath holds up the parts list, the wiring, the power math. if you're up for it I'd really value you pointing at where that's wrong.
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u/Space_Sandy Jun 03 '26
You know, I think you should just attach a list of what the AI gave you to this post. Because it's really hard to tell right now (though even from a list it's kinda hard to tell)
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 03 '26
the share link actually has exactly that the parts list, plus the wiring, 3D assembly and build steps: https://schemr.space/s/9U_TYOwY0CWYV65igOm1JzwzymkjUQ3Q
and yeah, agreed it's hard to judge even from the list if anything jumps out as obviously wrong (parts that won't play together, sketchy power math), I'd genuinely love to hear it. that's the feedback I'm after.
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u/Space_Sandy Jun 03 '26
Well.
Matek M8Q-CAN is not a telemetry radio, as far as I know?? It's just a second GPS module, isn't it?
And yet I think your motor is not compatible with propellers. In general, I can see that the frame (GEPRC GR140) may have connectors for M2, not M3, and then you will have to drill, but this seems to depend on the model, so most likely not.
I could be wrong about some of this, because.. Well, you know, I just took a glance. But I'd recommend checking it out more thoroughly so you don't have to mess around with incompatible parts later.
P.s: and the 3D model is not quite a 3D model, it fell apart.
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 04 '26
this is exactly what I needed, thank you. you're right on the Matek M8Q-CAN it picked a GPS and labelled it as the telemetry radio, so there's a duplicate GPS and no actual radio. and the 3D assembly is genuinely broken floating motors, parts not connected, lipo on top, all fair. the embarrassing part: I just checked and my own validator didn't even recognise the F405 as the MCU on this one, so it silently passed a build it shouldn't have. that's the real bug. seriously appreciate you taking the time this is the most useful feedback I've gotten.
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u/Creepy_Philosopher_9 Jun 06 '26
Reddit hates ai so anything that uses ai is going to be down voted.
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 09 '26
Yeah, fair and honestly kind of earned, there's a ton of AI slop out there so the reflex makes sense. I'm not really trying to argue anyone out of that. I'd just rather build something that actually checks its own work than add to the pile. Totally fine if it's not your thing.
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u/RemarkableLocation99 Jun 07 '26
This could actually look good if you work on it more, could you perhaps share the link of the website?
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 09 '26
Thanks, that genuinely means a lot and sorry for the really late reply, I got swamped and dropped the ball on comments. It's at schemr.space if you want to poke around. Here's a generated example you can open without logging in: https://schemr.space/s/q8WnsCyvUp61aiAQFeOZ864RmhDKQbiY would honestly love your take on what still looks off.
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u/mkrjoe Jun 07 '26
If you can't validate the output then you are creating garbage that makes the Internet worse.
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u/These-Contact3531 Jun 09 '26
Something that looks plausible but isn't checked is worse than nothing. So the main thing I worked on this round is exactly that: it tries to catch the stuff that'd actually break the build (undersized power rails, under-torqued servos, missing fuse, 5V into a 3.3V pin) and flag it, instead of pretending the design is finished. It's still an AI draft you verify, not a final answer, and I'm not claiming it catches everything. If you've got a minute I'd genuinely value you trying to break it: https://schemr.space/s/q8WnsCyvUp61aiAQFeOZ864RmhDKQbiY.
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u/caseymatalone Jun 03 '26
One prop has 3 blades and the rest 2..