circuit wizard - pcb help  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: vis5254
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 01:14:26 pm
content: This might be silly question but i want a clarity on it .i used circuit wizard to create Pcb layout of electric circuit . every circuit has one ground . either we could use one ground icon function and connect all required points to there . but i tried to add new ground icons every where required .and i converted into pcb layout . i doubt all the grounds are connected to same point or not ??

author: t1d
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2019, 07:38:44 pm
content: Quote from: vis5254 on May 10, 2019, 01:14:26 pmPlease make a jpeg image of your schematic and post it. Maybe open the project to the schematic page, capture a print screen, paste that into Paint and save it as a jpeg. We need to see the circuit, or have you explain it fully, to be able to tell you.As to your question about "grounds," there are various types and there are various misuses of the term "ground." It's going to take some reading on your part to fully understand the subject, but here are some (v-e-r-y limited) pointers...- There is circuit ground. This is the ground that the circuit uses.- There is earth ground. As a limited explanation, this is the common grounding that is tied to the buildings ground to the dirt outside. You need to be careful what types of circuits you tie to it, because you are making circuits have a common connection point. Often, this can be hazardous.- You know of the positive voltage side of a circuit. But, many circuits have and use a negative voltage supply. This negative supply is not ground.Once we have the schematic and get you sorted out on the type of "ground" you mean, we can try to help you with the Circuit Wizard program to get the ground function working as you intend. I have not used that particular program, but there is commonality with the PCB programs and we might be able to help you, anyway.If you are just starting to learn Circuit Wizard, you may want to use your energy to learn KiCad, instead. It is a free program, rather powerful, well supported and used widely. You won't have any trouble finding others to help you to get it to work.http://kicad-pcb.org/

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2019, 07:49:23 pm
content: I doubt anyone here will be able to help with that specific piece of software, because it seems to be aimed at the educational sector and most people here will use more professional software.If you're going to post a screenshot or schematic, please you PNG, rather than JPEG format. PNG is better suited to graphics with lines and solid colours. JPEG is a lossy format* optimised for photographs and introduces artefacts which make editing schematics a pain.*I know there are lossless variants of JPEG but most image editing software doesn't use them.

author: akowalczyk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2019, 06:02:45 am
content: Traditionally in schematic editors, your grounds will all be connected if they look/are named the same. There are cases where you would want to separate out grounds, but for simple circuits having them tied together is OK. This also applies to power nets, so you can have more than one power rail named 'VDD_5V0' or something similar to indicate 5VI'd also advocate for using KiCAD, it has a bit steeper of a learning curve, but is a very powerful tool for making all kinds of circuits and PCBs (also Open Source and Free!)

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2019, 07:22:11 am
content: Yes if I understand your question correctly that is how Circuit Wizard works, here is an example, of a schematic and the automatically generated PCB from it, you can see that the two ground connections are, err, connected.However note that the 9v connections are NOT connected.It's been a long time since I used Circuit Wizard, so I don't know off hand if that is something that can be changed.auto-generated PCB