ElectraCore
Circuit calculators, wiring guides, and learning paths for students, engineers, apprentices and trade workers. Built from the job up, by someone who has done the job.
- Role
- Sole designer and engineer. Scope, interface, calculators, and build.
- Stack
- Next.js, TypeScript, React, Calculators
- Source
- Jonta254/electracore
A closer look
The problem
The reference tools an electrician needs are scattered. One calculator lives on a forum, a wiring chart in a PDF, the theory in a textbook that assumes you are sitting an exam rather than standing in front of a panel. Nothing pulled the everyday calculations and guides into one place written for the job instead of the classroom.
The objective
One place an electrician, an apprentice, or a student can reach for the calculation they need and trust the answer. Fast enough to use mid job, clear enough to learn from, and correct enough that someone would rely on it with a meter in the other hand.
Research
I did not need to invent the requirements. I have done the trade. The research was cataloguing the calculations I actually reach for and the guides I wished existed, then checking each against how it comes up on site. The comparison set was the scattered tools already out there, which told me the gap was not another single calculator but a coherent set written for the work.
Design decisions
Scope came from the work, not a whiteboard
The tools included are the ones actually reached for on site, like voltage drop, cable sizing, and load analysis. Each earns its place by being something I have genuinely needed on a job, not by rounding out a feature list to look complete.
The answer first, the reasoning underneath
Every calculator gives the number first and the working below it. Someone mid job needs the result now. Someone learning needs to see how it was reached. The same screen serves both without slowing down either.
Learning paths, not a wall of videos
The guides run from fundamentals upward so an apprentice has a route through them, rather than a search box over a pile of disconnected articles. Structure is the feature.
Engineering decisions
Typed calculation logic, kept honest
The calculators are pure, typed functions separated from the interface, so the maths can be reasoned about and corrected on its own. In a tool people trust for real electrical work, a wrong answer is worse than no answer, so correctness sits at the centre rather than the edge.
Challenges and tradeoffs
The real risk was breadth. The temptation is to keep adding calculators until the tool claims to do everything, which is the fastest way to make it do nothing well. I traded coverage for trust: fewer tools, each one correct and clearly explained, rather than a long menu I could not stand behind. Serving a student and a working electrician on the same screen was the other tension, resolved by leading with the result and letting the reasoning stay one glance away.
The decision that mattered was the one to leave tools out. A short, correct set earns more trust than a long one I could not stand behind.
The solution
A platform of circuit calculators, wiring guides, and structured learning paths, live and free for the core tools. It describes itself, accurately, as built by an electrician with real site experience, because it was.
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- React
- Calculators
Results
Live at electracore.vercel.app and open to anyone. Every calculator and guide is there to be used and checked right now. There are no usage figures on this page because I would rather you tested the tools than took my word for a number.
Lessons learned
Leaving tools out was the discipline that mattered most, and it was harder than adding them. Next time I would push that further and lead even harder with the three or four calculations that come up every day, treating the rest as depth for the people who go looking. Restraint reads as confidence, and it is usually right.