Software to draw/compare voltages over the picture of healthy/defective boards? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: touchatout
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2023, 04:17:45 pm
content: Hi there,Havingtwo laptop motherboards of the same model, one healthy and one defective, I would like toprobe voltages and compare thembetween the boards, with the hope to locate the area in which the defective component is likely to be. Kind of a pre-diagnosis.So, am looking for an ultra easy to learn and freesoftware to annotate a photograph with voltagesmeasured on the motherboard.Bitmap for the background and vector for annotations.The ability to compare the annotated pictures, either with tabs or layers, would of course be appreciated, but is not fundamentally required.The software must bevery intuitive, so that there preferably is no need to read any documentation. (I'm in a rush.)I mean as intuitive as Paint on Windows 7 or PowerPoint, but preferably a little more CAD-like.If the software additionally has some circuit design and analysis capabilities, why not for later time, butthe top priority for now is that the software must be usable instantly, with almost no learning required.Which software would your recommend in the given context?(N.B. I am a former user of Microstation SE some 15-20 years ago and have also been using Autocad 2000 (2D) and clones like BricsCad or IntelliCad.So, I am familiar with using CAD softwares, but it was long time ago.)

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2023, 08:07:42 pm
content: If you can't find anything more suitable, you can always use e.g.Inkscape.Import the motherboard image on the bottom layer, and lock it. I would center the image, leaving room on the outside for the voltages.Create one layer for the shared line artwork. Then create two layers, one for each laptop, where you add the voltages as text. Perhaps use a specific color for each laptop too, so you can see them at the same time. Whenever you edit a specific layer, keep the others locked.It's not optimal, but it is quickly available regardless of your OS.If I was doing that myself, I'd probably whip up a Gtk or Qt application to do this, with voltage measurement points marked as circular dots, and tooltip overlays showing the voltage on each system, clicking on a dot editing the voltage there with a combined textbox-and-slider. It'd take a few hours, but that way I could integrate it to my workflow. (Interesting details would be how to cross-reference a motherboard image and one or more measurement sets. At a time, only one measurement set should be read/writable, which ought to help with editing. A full-screen mode might speed up the entire process, too.)

author: SmallCog
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2023, 10:35:17 pm
content: I've got visio and use it for other things, so I'd probably just do it in visio if it were me (image as a locked bottom layer and draw/annotate over it)Draw.io is a free alternative to visio it can likely do this easily enough. I played with it a bit ages ago just to see what it was when I heard of it and it was quite intuitiveNeither will do circuit analyis, just a 2d drawing packageAlternatively go analogue, print it on a big bit of paper and scribble all over it :-)