A browser-based wiring planner and checker for hand-soldered perfboard. Drag parts to match your real board while a rule-checker — implemented twice, in JS and Python, and verified to agree in CI — catches shorts, backwards parts, and missing connections before you solder. One HTML file, free, no install.
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Hey Product Hunt! 👋
I've been building electronics for a while now — both as a personal hobby and as part of projects at work. I'm not an EE, and these days I can get an AI to design a circuit for me in about a minute. But wiring it onto an actual perfboard by hand? That's where it always fell apart — one jumper in the wrong hole and nothing works, with zero clue which of a hundred joints is the bad one.
What really bugged me was the gap between working with Claude Code and the reality on my bench. Claude could hand me a clean design in seconds, but the moment I picked up the soldering iron I was on my own — no way to check my physical wiring against what the AI actually intended.
So I built perfwire: a browser tool that plans and checks hand-soldered perfboard wiring the way a real board behaves, not an abstract schematic. It models individual holes and leads, so it catches shorts, backwards capacitors, and connections that never got made — before you pick up the iron. There's a 3D view now that finally lets you see where a wire actually goes on a crowded board.
It's one HTML file: no install, no account, works offline, and a board shares as just a URL. Use it standalone, or in a loop with Claude Code — describe a circuit, get a board back, drag it to match reality, hand it back, repeat. That loop is exactly the gap I wanted to close.
It's free and open source (Apache 2.0).
I'd love feedback, especially from anyone who's fought with perfboard by hand: what's the mistake that always gets you?
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A really useful idea would be to add a way to print or export the layout as a 1:1 template so you can tape it to the physical perfboard and punch through component leads at the exact spots. Right now I'd still have to eyeball placements during soldering, but a scaled print would let the digital plan match the real board one-to-one.
Hi Elizabeth, good news. This already exists. Under the collapsed "Data" section there's a "Print 1:1" button that sets the SVG to real millimeter dimensions before handing off to your browser's print dialog, so it comes out true to the board and you can punch through at the real hole spacing.
One catch I haven't documented yet. Browsers default to "fit to page" when printing, which breaks the 1:1 scale, so you need to manually pick "Actual size" or "100%" in the print dialog.
Thanks for pointing this out, it's clearly too buried.
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How does the rule checker handle parts with non-standard pinouts like transistors or voltage regulators that vary by manufacturer? Curious if I'd need to manually define each footprint or if there's some kind of common library built in.
Report
Dragged a few resistors onto a perfboard layout and the rule-checker immediately caught a backwards LED I would have definitely missed. Love that it's just one HTML file with no install fuss.
Report
drag a couple parts onto a board and the rule checker just works, caught a reversed diode i almost missed. love that the whole thing is a single html file.
That's exactly the moment I built this for. You catch the mistake on screen instead of finding it with a multimeter after the joint's already gone cold. Really glad it worked for you.
And yeah, the single-file thing matters to me too, no install needed.
Hey Product Hunt! 👋
I've been building electronics for a while now — both as a personal hobby and as part of projects at work. I'm not an EE, and these days I can get an AI to design a circuit for me in about a minute. But wiring it onto an actual perfboard by hand? That's where it always fell apart — one jumper in the wrong hole and nothing works, with zero clue which of a hundred joints is the bad one.
What really bugged me was the gap between working with Claude Code and the reality on my bench. Claude could hand me a clean design in seconds, but the moment I picked up the soldering iron I was on my own — no way to check my physical wiring against what the AI actually intended.
So I built perfwire: a browser tool that plans and checks hand-soldered perfboard wiring the way a real board behaves, not an abstract schematic. It models individual holes and leads, so it catches shorts, backwards capacitors, and connections that never got made — before you pick up the iron. There's a 3D view now that finally lets you see where a wire actually goes on a crowded board.
It's one HTML file: no install, no account, works offline, and a board shares as just a URL. Use it standalone, or in a loop with Claude Code — describe a circuit, get a board back, drag it to match reality, hand it back, repeat. That loop is exactly the gap I wanted to close.
It's free and open source (Apache 2.0).
I'd love feedback, especially from anyone who's fought with perfboard by hand: what's the mistake that always gets you?
A really useful idea would be to add a way to print or export the layout as a 1:1 template so you can tape it to the physical perfboard and punch through component leads at the exact spots. Right now I'd still have to eyeball placements during soldering, but a scaled print would let the digital plan match the real board one-to-one.
@elizabeths37473
Hi Elizabeth, good news. This already exists. Under the collapsed "Data" section there's a "Print 1:1" button that sets the SVG to real millimeter dimensions before handing off to your browser's print dialog, so it comes out true to the board and you can punch through at the real hole spacing.
One catch I haven't documented yet. Browsers default to "fit to page" when printing, which breaks the 1:1 scale, so you need to manually pick "Actual size" or "100%" in the print dialog.
Thanks for pointing this out, it's clearly too buried.
How does the rule checker handle parts with non-standard pinouts like transistors or voltage regulators that vary by manufacturer? Curious if I'd need to manually define each footprint or if there's some kind of common library built in.
Dragged a few resistors onto a perfboard layout and the rule-checker immediately caught a backwards LED I would have definitely missed. Love that it's just one HTML file with no install fuss.
drag a couple parts onto a board and the rule checker just works, caught a reversed diode i almost missed. love that the whole thing is a single html file.
@ayferlik8
That's exactly the moment I built this for. You catch the mistake on screen instead of finding it with a multimeter after the joint's already gone cold. Really glad it worked for you.
And yeah, the single-file thing matters to me too, no install needed.
What were you wiring up?