With components requested, an unreadable or empty STEP model for U1 does not fail the export. OpenCascade import of the result shows two meshes, PCB and R1, where the valid control has three, so the mechanical side gets a board with a part missing and no error.
Recurring agent failure issue in circuit-json-to-step (tscircuit)
What engineers report
A recurring agent failure problem in circuit-json-to-step (tscircuit) that mostly hits the electrical engineer.
Failure pattern: validation / silent failure
Analyst note
From the Grok pain-radar digests, Nov 8-9 2026 (Nov 8 8:41 AM ET through Nov 9 6:41 AM ET digests plus the Haitch editions). Verified live 2026-11-09: issue/PR read; title and state confirmed.
What it costs a team
Modeled annual cost
$30,000
For a team of 5
Prototype delay
3 days
Modeled schedule slip per occurrence
Time lost
240 min
Per engineer per month, about 1 incidents
How the cost is modeled
240 min/month × 5 engineers × 12 months = 240 hours × $125/hour = $30,000
A modeled estimate with medium confidence. Swap in your own team size and loaded rate to size it for your team.
Engineering tools that address it
No engineering tool profile lists this error yet. Browse tools that connect to circuit-json-to-step (tscircuit).
Evidence
More recurring errors in circuit-json-to-step (tscircuit)
- Bottom-mounted parts in the STEP export came out sticking through the top of the board, because the core library flips bottom components 180 degrees and the STEP merger flipped them a second time, putting an 8x6x3 mm part on a 1.6 mm board at Z -0.8 to +2.2 mm instead of underneath.ECAD · impact 66
- STEP export silently leaves out a component when its model fails to load, and still exits 0.ECAD · impact 66
- When a component's STEP URL failed to fetch or parse, it got neither the vendor model nor the generated fallback body, so the enclosure-side 3D model silently missed a part. The fix falls back to a generated body or bounding box and reports failed ids.ECAD · impact 66
Sourced from public community reports. Costs and delays are modeled estimates, not measurements. Know a better source or a fix? Tell us at hello@productflo.io.