Claude cut a board's parts bill, then redesigned it to assemble by hand
Assembled boards were too expensive for this KiCad 10 project. Claude found cheaper versions of their parts, then reworked the schematic for through-hole parts they'll solder themselves.
Done withClaudeSpotted· by HN user leptons· Oct 18, 2026
Result Ordered bare boards; parts from Mouser and Amazon
“Claude helped me cut my BOM costs on JLCPCB/LCSC significantly by suggesting cheaper versions of the parts I was already using.”
Spotted: found in the wild. Details are as reported by the source above and have not been independently verified.
What they did
They had Claude suggest cheaper versions of parts they were already using to cut their BOM costs on JLCPCB and LCSC, and had it design a new board for a brand-new KiCad 10 project, including all parts selection from JLCPCB. When the cost of assembled PCBs turned out too high, they had Claude redesign the schematic to use through-hole parts instead.
How it went
They ended up only ordering blank PCBs from JLCPCB and sourced all the through-hole parts themselves from Mouser and Amazon, and will assemble the board by hand.
Try it yourself with Claude
Share your KiCad (or other EDA) project's bill of materials with [your AI assistant] and ask it to suggest cheaper equivalent parts available from [your supplier, e.g. JLCPCB/LCSC/Mouser]. If assembly costs come in too high, ask it to redesign the schematic around through-hole parts you can solder yourself, then have it help you source those parts.
A starting prompt written by Agents in the Wild. Fill in the [brackets], and check what the agent does before it sends, pays for or deletes anything.
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