What's the "it" software for circuit diagrams - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: kelemvor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 05:48:44 pm
content: Greetings, earthlings!I'm working on translating a product manual from Chinese to English. It's a hobby thing, I'm no pro. It's for a power inverter board. Well, I'm mostly done with the text of the manual and now I come to the five different schematics included in the manual. The existing stuff seems to be a schematic for wires and symbols. However, all text (component values, descriptions etc) are just oddly placed/spaced text in ms word which has the schematic image pasted on top.At first I started merely translating the pieces of text, tediously working on placing the text where its supposed to be on the schematic. Which works ok until the margins or font above get changed.. then everything is out of whack.I spent a good 8 hours doing the main translation (google translate, I don't read Chinese). So I thought I'd like to do something better than just text with a superimposed graphic. I'd like to draw the schematics in a program, then paste the schematic into the document. Perhaps even embed the schematic file its-self.All of that leading up to my actual question....drum roll....What program should I use to create the schematic? I first tried Sam Fischer's circuit diagram but it randomly crashes so it's out. I drew one of the diagrams up in digikey's scheme it. It seems to be fair. I can't seem to draw a wire that doesn't connect to anything (in order to duplicate the original schematic). Kicad? EasyEDA? Scheme-it? Circuit Diagram? Something else?Free is important. I started working on this because I'm going to build the inverter. In the translation of the manual I think I've gleaned enough that I can complete the build. There seems to be folks looking online for English versions of the manual so I thought maybe I'd finish the job and help others out.Oh, and it's an EGP1000W with an EGS002 driver from Electronic Giant Micro (lol). Should make a 3kva pure sine power inverter. Not that THAT should matter with regards to software choice.

author: oPossum
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 05:59:34 pm
content: KiCad and EAGLE are probably the most popular. Also take a look at Fritzing.

author: kelemvor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 07:07:03 pm
content: Quote from: oPossum on September 16, 2019, 05:59:34 pmThanks for the suggestions! I drew it up in kicad. Although it appears extremely capable, it also seems very kludgy to use. Not sure I want to use it long term. I guess I'll give Eagle a shot next.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 07:13:41 pm
content: Forget Eagle, it was once very popular with hobbyists but then it went subscription-only, KiCAD is the path forward. ALL professional EDA tools are kludgy, it's just the nature of the beast. Once you learn it it's no big deal.Forget Fritzing too, it is a cancer, I'm so tired of seeing stupid breadboard drawings with a rat's nest of colored wires instead of a proper schematic. Learning a tool like Fritzing just gives you a crutch that will soon be holding you back. Just bite the bullet and learn to use a real EDA in the first place.

author: MarkF
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 07:21:11 pm
content: Forget all those.My goto tool isDipTrace.More intuitive in my opinion.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 07:27:52 pm
content: I have seen people using LTspice to draw something and put it on the forum.Bonus: it comes with a free simulator

author: FreddieChopin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 08:08:33 pm
content: In case like this I'd probably go with just drawing the thing in Adobe Illustrator.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 08:09:05 pm
content: Something to consider: if you want to produce schematics that will not look like crap aliased shit in a book/PDF, use software that can export them to a vectorial format, such as SVG or EPS.Bitmap schematics in anything you publish are really ugly IMO. On forums they are OK.KiCad can do that. Eagle can't AFAIK, and I personally find schematics from Eagle look really bad.

author: Dave
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 08:24:15 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 16, 2019, 08:09:05 pmHaving just finished writing my master's thesis with all vectorized schematics, I concur.I used circuitikz for latex. It requires quite a bit of fiddling to get things just right (for my taste), but it's well worth the dicking around.Here's a bitmap () of my vector image.

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 08:43:30 pm
content: Quote from: oPossum on September 16, 2019, 05:59:34 pmI hate KICAD, just couldn't get away with it.LTPSPICE is free and does ok schematics.

author: grbk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 09:03:11 pm
content: Quote from: Dave on September 16, 2019, 08:24:15 pmI also like circuitikz a lot. The results look great.However, when I was using it a lot for reports in college, I found it was easy to sink an ungodly amount of time into getting your schematics to look perfect, especially when there were more important things to take care of (namely writing the text of the report...)!

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 09:46:34 pm
content: Quote from: Dave on September 16, 2019, 08:24:15 pmOh, for people using Latex (I do), it's great indeed.

author: ledtester
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2019, 10:09:56 pm
content: Quote from: grbk on September 16, 2019, 09:03:11 pmcircuitikz looks cool:https://youtu.be/WRTELZP1l0YHaven't tried it out, but here's an ltspice to circuitikz conversion tool:https://github.com/ckuhlmann/lt2circuitikz

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 02:18:00 am
content: Quote from: kelemvor on September 16, 2019, 05:48:44 pmGreetings,I use gSCHEM which is a Free, GPL'd, easy to use Schematic Capture program. Should you ever need to design a PCB, generate a SPICE netlist, gEDA can do that as well. gEDA has a wealth of tutorials and documentation.You don't see gEDA recommended here much, but it is the first decent GPL'd schematic capture EDA ever available on the net in my opinion.The gEDA project was started by Ales Hvezda in an effort to remedy the lack of free software EDA tools for Linux/UNIX. The first software was released on 1 April 1998, and included a schematic capture program (gSCHEM) and a netlister.gEDA official homepage:http://www.geda-project.org/I've attached a gSCHEM and PCB demo I made back in 2000 for your viewing pleasure

author: TheUnnamedNewbie
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 05:59:53 am
content: If you are drawing circuits for publication and documentation, my experience is that it is best to use a vector-graphics illustration program like Adobe Illustrator, GNU Inkscape, Affinity Designer. Some of my colleagues like Visio, but I don't like it that much.I swear by Illustrator, being wrapped up in the Adobe tool-chain for other stuff too, and I get faster results than many of my friends do using actual software built for the job. The main hassle is the symbol library (as Illustrator has none) but that is something you can get over quite fast.

author: ledtester
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 09:30:18 am
content: Speaking of Inkscape, there is a nice tutorial on using it for circuits:https://youtu.be/ITpjjDETGk8

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 09:45:31 am
content: Quote from: kelemvor on September 16, 2019, 07:07:03 pmGood luck. I found Eagle even more kludgy.At work we use Proteus, but I prefer LTSpice for schematics.

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 09:47:18 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 16, 2019, 08:09:05 pmEagle 6.6 under OSX lets you print to a file. The resulting PDF renders nicely on a printed page, but less so at certain resolutions on screen.I clean up an Eagle part's schematic symbol when I fix and clean up its pad layout. The results can be pretty reasonable after some extra work. But then that no longer surprises me about Eagle.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 11:28:23 am
content: A generic vector graphics program will let you have more control over the appearance, and you can put non-schematic-ish things on it too, but won't have the specific features e.g. automatically moving nets around as you move the connected parts that schematics software can do. If you're just redrawing an existing schematic, it might not matter too much.Quote from: kelemvor on September 16, 2019, 05:48:44 pmDoes the manual also includescantily dressed girls holding the product?

author: TERRA Operative
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 12:35:24 pm
content: Quote from: MarkF on September 16, 2019, 07:21:11 pmMy vote os for DipTrace as well.After mutliple rounds in the ring fighting Kicad and bashing my head against the UI, DipTrace just makes sense. It's a breeze to use in comparison.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 01:33:55 pm
content: Quote from: techman-001 on September 17, 2019, 02:18:00 amOh, I don't use gSCHEM currently, but yep for schematic capture, it's nice and can produce vector graphics as well. Last I checked, there wasn't really up-to-date binaries for Windows though (or MacOS for that matter), so if the OP isn't using Linux, that may be impractical. (And also, last I checked, that was a while ago, gSCHEM was hard to build on Windows/MSYS2 from source...)(Again, for those intimidated by gSCHEM or who can't use it, KiCad does also produce vector graphics and has a much larger library AFAIK! Either way, there's really little reason to use an all-purpose drawing program for this IMO, as those schematic editors are real schematic editors, much easier to use for schematic entry, and can definitely produce vector graphics which will look every bit as good as using Illustrator or Inkscape, but a lot less clunky for this!)For pure-Windows users that want something simpler than KiCad, there's also TinyCAD, which works fairly well, is simple to use and even though it can't produce vector graphics formats directly, it can export to EMF, which is a graphics metafile, which in turn can be imported in Inkscape (and others), and can then be exported to your favorite vector format (SVG, EPS, PDF, others...) I used to use this a few years ago and it was fine. Depending on the application you use for document editing, you may not even need to go through Inkscape (or such), because on Windows, many document editing apps can directly import EMF and will translate it to pure vector graphics.

author: KMoffett
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 09:10:57 pm
content: ExpressPCB is free and pretty intuitive. Decent component library and easy to edit or create new symbols and parts Exports the schematics to 300 dpi bitmap image.https://www.expresspcb.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3MTm8eHY5AIVg_5kCh3qIQ0lEAAYASAAEgJoGfD_BwE

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 10:15:07 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on September 16, 2019, 07:13:41 pmIt's only the "nature of the beast" because every EDA program behaves basically the same. It's definitely possible to make one whose user interface doesn't suck, but it would mean breaking some of the (crappy) conventions that are so entrenched. If someone were to design a pro-level one from scratch, but involving some actual professional interaction designers in addition to EEs, they might actually produce a tool that isn't daunting to beginners.As for KiCAD, it just reminds me of practically every open source desktop app I have ever tried: raggedy as hell around the edges. You can tell that with OSS apps, no UI designer has ever been near them, with few exceptions. Do they get the job done? Yes. Are they pleasant to use? Rarely.(And that's why the Mac remains my platform of choice: Mac developers tend to pay alotmore attention to UI consistency, making it less jarring and annoying to use apps from various developers than having to memorize different gesture and key conventions like on other platforms.)

author: ledtester
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 10:22:23 pm
content: Question... if you have drawn up a schematic in KiCad or Eagle, is it possible to render it in black & white (not grayscale) with heavier weight lines?This is an example of how I'd like to have it rendered:

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 11:06:57 pm
content: Quote from: ledtester on September 17, 2019, 10:22:23 pmThis doesn't answer your question but it's a piece of cake in gEDA. This took me 5 minutes and used standard library parts.Note: This demo is on Unix, please see this article for one way of running gEDA on Windows:http://www.8bitforce.com/blog/2019/05/10/how-to-run-geda-tools-on-windows-10/

author: oPossum
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 11:52:41 pm
content: Check the Black and Solid options in the Eagle print dialog.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 am
content: Quote from: tooki on September 17, 2019, 10:15:07 pmUI consistency is sadly a pipe dream in the era of a dozen platforms which all want to "develop" and to "differentiate" themselves and applications which are ported back and forth as the OS fads change.And an elephant in the room is that even the individual platforms aren't exactly UI-consistent over sufficiently long timespans, while a lot of professional software dates back decades.Welcome to the brave new world of UI diversityBy the way, you get used to it over time. The amount of UI tricks invented so far is finite, at some point they just stop surprising you anymore.It's all the genuinely novel fads coming from professional UI designers that I find most disruptive

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 10:01:27 am
content: Quote from: magic on September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 amWindows 10 is a classic example of a inconsistent UI, even across the same OS, with traditional vs Metro Apps which use different toolkits, then MS Office is always different. People used to complain about Linux lacking a consistent GUI and look and feel but Windows has gotten much worse recently.

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 11:05:24 am
content: As a test, I created a simple Eagle 6.6 schematic and did the following to add it to a simple document, all under OSX.Print the schematic to a file, with a Scale Factor of 1, and Options: Black and Solid.Open the printed PDF with Preview, crop the interesting bits with the "Select Tool" and use "Save As ..." to save the document as an unfiltered PDF.Open TextEdit and create some text.Drag and drop the cropped PDF into the document.Save and print the RTF document.Attached is the final PDF result, along with a ZIP file containing the schematic, RTF and intermediate products.I have suffered worse and more tedious results. (For reference, I got fairly deep in desktop publishing when I was writing my book, but drifted out of it after Adobe orphaned my copies of both PageMaker and FrameMaker.)Anyway, I hope that helps.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 11:15:59 am
content: Quote from: jfiresto on September 18, 2019, 11:05:24 amThe OP did say " ... Kicad? EasyEDA? Scheme-it? Circuit Diagram? Something else?Free is important.... " and Eagle isn't free apart from a crippled eval version.

author: techman-001
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 11:33:35 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 17, 2019, 01:33:55 pmThe OP did say "free is important" and as as Windows isn't free I assumed he may mean a Linux app.As gEDA is Open Source and made by Linux programmers in their free time, naturally they compile gEDA for Linux or any Open Unix. They have no marketing budget or Windows/Mac machines so naturally there isn't a Windows or Mac binary unless a Windows/Mac user ports it, the source is there ready for them to do so.Of course the Windows users can avail themselves of a Virtual Machine such as "Virtual Box", install a Free Linux and load gEDA, that should be a no brainer these days ?I love gSCHEM, it reminds me of my first Schematic Capture love, ORCAD for DOS when it was only a Schematic Capture. In time Orcad was ONLY available for Windows and was slow and buggy as a result (imho).But gSCHEM is as fast today as Orcad was on DOS, has configurable fastkeys making a nice Function Key Keyboard legend doable (just like ORCAD for DOS), runs on every Open Unix I've tried ... what's not to love ?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 12:07:04 pm
content: Quote from: magic on September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 amTrue, though it was more internal consistency I had in mind, not so much consistency between platforms. But your point is well taken. (I do find it interesting that in areas where the platforms have become more similar, it’s often been the Mac’s way that eventually took over. For example, how Windows now handles mouse scrolling and some text selection behaviors. Though examples of the opposite definitely exist, too — like keyboard shortcuts, which the Mac didn’t even have until Microsoft put them in Office for Mac in early 1985!!!)Quote from: magic on September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 amAin’t that the truth!!As a long-time Mac user (since 1992), one of the things I dislike about the Apple of today is its much less rigid adherence to its own UI guidelines, as well as the watering down of the guidelines themselves. So while I still think the Mac has the best desktop UI overall, it’s not quite aspredictablean interface as it once was. (Since that’s the whole point of UI consistency: total predictability of behavior.)Quote from: magic on September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 amWell, I wouldn’t call itnew. We had a lot more UI creativity going on in the past. Pretty much every desktop UI in common use now is based on the original Mac’s UI fundamentals, which MS copied into Windows, and then Linux et al. copied from Windows. The only other branch of UI that exists in any way whatsoever is X-Windows from the classic UNIX workstations, but that’s practically irrelevant now.Quote from: magic on September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 amNope. Some things I’ll never get used to. For example, I’ve been using Mac OS X full time since 2002 or so, and Istillinstinctively press ⌘-N to create a new folder in the Finder (as it did in classic Mac OS), but instead get a new Finder window. I don’t think I’ll ever un-learn that muscle memory.Quote from: magic on September 18, 2019, 07:12:13 amWell, I think those come from designers who approach it from an artist’s POV, and not from the user’s. Gratuitous change does nothing but stroke the designer’s ego; IMHO, a gifted UI designer is focused on what works best for the user, and most of the time, that means “don’t be creative, do what users know and just reuse existing UI elements/behaviors”. That and look at what users actually try to do; if you see tons of users trying to do something one way instinctively, it’s worth considering making that a way to do it!(Yes, I’ve worked as a UI designer. It bugged the hell out of me when good designs got shot down because they were “the way everyone does it”, or even just — I swear to god this is verbatim — “it’s not Swiss enough, [the usual, proven way] is too American”.Like... a good UI is a good UI, period.)

author: brabus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 12:10:29 pm
content: FidoCad or FidoCadJ.

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 12:28:42 pm
content: Quote from: techman-001 on September 18, 2019, 11:15:59 amPlease correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the OP write that he would try Eagle next? He may not have meant that sort of "free" and may find Eagle is not so "crippled", particularly if he does not generate boards.I am hardly an Eagle fan, but it was just (and still is?) a suggestion.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2019, 02:13:35 pm
content: Quote from: ledtester on September 17, 2019, 10:22:23 pmWith KiCad, yup. You need to use the "Trace" function in the File dialog. Here you can select the exported file format, B&W or color, and the thickness of lines.