Drawing schematics on a computer?

[Terry]

Has anyone got any tips on drawing circuit diagrams?

I am driving myself nuts trying to use paint and get straight lines - I have a bunch of jpg's for the symbols but putting them together is going to take all day.  I s there a package I could get that's cheap (or free)?

Dave, I use Paint for everything - not that I'd stop you experimenting with anything else, of course!

A couple of tips:

   

- Work at a greater magnification that the final result, it makes it much easier to see - and correct - those jagged lines (I usually use 200%)

- Draw a line but do not click out of the line drawing mode. You will see a tiny square at each end of the line as in (a).

- If you hover the cursor over one of the squares, a double headed arrow appears - click on it and drag the end of the line until it is straight: you can also adjust the line length if you wish (b).

- Something I don't use but you may find it useful is the click Gridlines on the View menu ©. Paint doesn't have a 'snap to grid' function but you might find the grid easier to follow when drawing lines.

I note that you have a jpg symbol file, which is a pity - as I explained in another thread recently, the 'p' stands for pictures - the sort you take with a camera. You should use the png format (where the 'g' stands for graphics) for your schematics to avoid the degradation caused by the jpg compression.

I've attached a symbol file I've gradually been adding to over the years which you are free to use - note that the symbols are 200% of normal size!     

Finally, to prove that you can draw (lots of) straight lines using Paint, I've attached the latest revision to the Dulwich museum's RF distribution system.    

[unrealdave]

You should be listening to the Cricket on TMS  

Seriously, I'm put off by the need to generate Symbols. It seems silly to have lots of people generating there own Valves, Resistors, Capacitors, Coils etc.
Is it possible to Post them, or Package them up for distribution?

Alan

Attached a zip file - let me know what you think.

Terry - you really should give this ink thingy a go

[pwdrive]

You should be listening to the Cricket on TMS  

Seriously, I'm put off by the need to generate Symbols. It seems silly to have lots of people generating there own Valves, Resistors, Capacitors, Coils etc.
Is it possible to Post them, or Package them up for distribution?

Alan

In my case I'm not sure Alan, if there's a way of sharing the circuit symbols I did I would share them but I don't know how to do it other than post a drawing of them, any ideas anyone?

I found that doing yer own symbols can have advantages, particularly with valves eg: some valves have the suppressor grid internally connected to the cathode, others don't and have their own pin.

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

Anyways for what it's worth here's my symbols library, don't know if anything from that can be grabbed and dumped in a drawing program that anyone has.

I drew these some years ago and were enough for what I needed.

The PNG one only.

I tried the SVG one but it's not forum compatible.

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

Splendid, thanks everyone. I'll have a play.

Alan

[pwdrive]

And a final one showing the symbols and (hopefully) a single balanced mixer idea for CW/SSB reception for a valved direct conversion receiver.


Lawrence.

[Mark Hennessy]

I use an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro for schematics, and do the copy and pasting thing. It's time-consuming, but with practice it's not so bad. I edit as a bitmap (never really mastered the vector methods within PSP), save as .GIF generally. I like the total control that this method affords, but it would be nice to find a faster method for quick sketch-ups.

Occasionally, I've used the schematic capture tools that come with the various Spice simulation packages. LTSpice is good for the money

[Alan Douglas]

Back in the days of 286s and 386s I borrowed a program "Tango Schematic" from a friend at work, and since I was doing all their pc layout (though on a light table with tape) I had the time to learn it, and to create a set of symbols for antique components. It was cumbersome but once you got used to the steps you could work pretty fast. I used it to draw the schematics in my test-equipment book.

However Tango turned out to rely on fonts built into video cards of the time, and simply wouldn't work on newer computers.

[ppppenguin]

The old Orcad IV for DOS still works perfectly well full screen under XP. When I finally migrate to W7 or whatever it'll probably have to run in an XP or W2K virtual machine under VirtualBox. It's not exactly a joy to use unless you're doing a lot of it and can re-learn all the keystrokes that made it so fast. I doubt its printer drivers will work with anythng vaguely modern. I created a lot of schematics with this software, many of which went into production with my clients. I can safely say that I could not have had a viable business without it.

Orcad for Windows, later Cadence, works fine. It also gives me access to all my old Orcad schematics going right back to 1988. It's more or less compliant with Windows CUI conventions and communicates properly with printers. The other day I wanted a schematic from a project c1992 vintage and was able to access it in a few seconds.

If I wanted a more modern schematic capture package I'd probably use Kicad.

[Radio Fixer]

Well I use CorelDraw, might have mentioned that before  .  Use my own symbols and love the package.  Easy to do rotary bits like switches.  Can use layers for symbols and text and lots of other handy bits.

One tip, if your package has it is, is to draw resistors as rectangles with a white fill.  Same with capacitors, draw two plates (lock them if you like) and then put a white (no outline) rectangle between them.  Now draw the circuit lines in black or whatever, as usual, and place the component over the lines with them set in order to be on top.  The advantage is that you can slide the components up and down or along the lines as spacing changes are needed.

Gary