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Adom's AI Flow: a tool to help the AI follow all of the steps it takes to build a board.

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Closed feature request

aiflow-molecule: choose large vs medium machine pins (base scaffold, mass, actuators, size, current)

John Lauer · ·closed by John Lauer

The gap

aiflow-molecule puts MachinePinMediumShort on every molecule's corners. It has no rule for when a board needs large pins. base-scaffold-system lists the pin types by seat depth, and definitions mentions large-pin spacing, but neither says when to pick large. So boards that must have large pins get medium: a motor carrier, or a board seated straight into the base scaffold, whose 32 mm grid is LARGE contacts.

Data (adom/machine-pins, adom/mill-max)

Medium Large
Tail / shaft Ø0.51 / Ø1.2 mm Ø1.85 / Ø3.6 mm (about 27× the bending stiffness)
Current class rating 3.5 A 20.8 A
Retention per contact ≈160–180 g extraction ≈210–250 g extraction
Seats in medium contacts (a board or a LrgMed user scaffold) large contacts (the base scaffold grid, or LrgMed corners)

Retention figures are Mill-Max standard clips at the same tail diameters. Our HXH contacts haven't been measured yet, so a pull-test should replace them.

Proposed rule (approved by John 2026-10-21)

Use LARGE pins (LargeShort, or LargeStandard on LrgMed user-scaffold corners per base-scaffold-system) if ANY of:

  1. The board seats directly in the base scaffold.
  2. The board with its parts weighs more than 100 g (4 medium contacts ≈ 640 g of pull-out).
  3. It carries anything that pushes, pulls or twists it: a motor or actuator, a heatsink over 20 g, a cabled connector people unplug (barrel jack, USB), or a button pressed hard.
  4. Its longest side is over 100 mm.
  5. Any pin carries more than 3.5 A.

Otherwise use MEDIUM pins (MediumShort): small boards that sit in another board or a user scaffold.

Ask

Put this rule, and an aiflow molecule check that applies it (mass from the BOM, size from Edge.Cuts, current from the netlist), into aiflow-molecule. Point base-scaffold-system and definitions at it.

1 Reply

John Lauer ·

Done in adom-aiflow 0.2.17, with the two pointer pages updated too.

The rule is in the aiflow-molecule skill exactly as approved, at the point where corner pins are chosen. It includes your data table, with the note that retention is Mill-Max standard-clip figures until our HXH contacts are pull-tested. The old "every molecule gets MediumShort" text is gone.

molecule check applies it (also inside place check, gate and finish), from new spec.molecule fields:

  • Seat: seat is "base", "lrgmed" or "board"; "base" requires large.
  • Size: the longest side of the outer Edge.Cuts loop over 100 mm requires large.
  • Current: the highest spec.loads current on a net that a machine pin or contact carries, over 3.5 A, requires large. That figure is the whole net's current, which is conservative. A declared pinCurrentA is the reviewed per-pin figure and governs instead: four GND corner pins sharing a 5 A return carry about 1.25 A each, so declare pinCurrentA: 1.25.
  • Mass: massG over 100 requires large. Without it, a BOM mass_g or weight_g column is summed (molecule check --bom, or the run's BOM). With neither, the check warns and names spec.molecule.massG. It never guesses a mass.
  • Push, pull or twist: each item in mechanicalLoads: [{ref, kind: motor|actuator|heatsink|cabled-connector|button, massG?}] requires large; a heatsink counts only over 20 g. Footprint or BOM keywords (motor, actuator, heatsink, barrel jack, USB connector) only warn until you declare the part, or "mechanicalLoads": [].
  • Verdict: large required on medium pins is an ERROR naming every reason and the fix (LargeShort, or LargeStandard on LrgMed corners). Large pins with no reason pass. The decision is recorded in the run as pinClass.

On the buck molecule the check reads "medium corner pins: no large-pin reason (longest side 28.0 mm, highest pin current 1 A on GND)", plus a warning asking for its mass.

Pointers:

  • base-scaffold-system 0.1.8 replaces its "no numeric cutoff is established" paragraph with the rule and a link to aiflow-molecule. This release also ships your Oct 12 corner-pin guidance, which hadn't been published yet.
  • definitions 1.11.3: the Machine Pin entry now names the rule and links to it.

Upgrade: adom-wiki pkg install adom/adom-aiflow (0.2.17), adom/base-scaffold-system and adom/definitions.

John Lauer closed this ·

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