Schematic software

Michael Popoloski

Is there a good free schematic diagram software package that I can download? It doesn't have to be anything fancy, just something to create those nice looking diagrams you are all throwing around.

SSteve

Eagle is pretty good. The free version has some limitations on PCB size and component count, but will probably work for you.

www.cadsoft.de/

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OS-X: because making Unix user-friendly was easier than debugging Windows

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SailerMan

I always recommend www.diptrace.com

Eric

Paul Baker

I dont think Eagle has limitations on component count, just board size, number of layers and single page schematic which means there's no real limiation if you are only drawing up schamatics.

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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

I use DesignWorks Lite. It's easy to learn and use, and at $39.95, it's almost free.

-Phil

Bergamot

diptrace > *

Dennis Ferron

I use Tinycad but I don't recommend it. The GUI is very frustrating to use - it has a large number of graphical glitches and bugs but the author lists the program as "finished/final" version, so I guess he thinks the state it is in now is acceptable. It can make nice GIF files (only the GUI shows the glitches; the output is ok). But it also has a lot of weirdness with the way it routes lines. For instance, say you drag an endpoint to make a wire longer and while you are doing that accidently move the mouse in anything but a perfectly straight line, you momentarily make the wire go diagonal. No big deal because it is straight again when you finish. But all the other wires connected to it try to "track" this diagonal movement, which throws other wires out of whack, and so on, which can make your entire schematic suddenly look terrible. It doesn't go back when you make the wire straight again. You have to manually fix it all, or hit undo.

I will say in it's defense: The undo function does work well and it supports infinite numbers of undos and redos. It's bugs seem to be all GUI or wire routing bugs; it doesn't seem to have any "crashing" bugs. The library is easy to make new parts for, but it is hard to figure out how to use at first and lacks essential symbols, but the symbol drawing tool is good for making new ones to make up for the lackings.

I've really only been using it because I couldn't find anything else (anything else open source that is) and I learned to work around the "issues" it has.

Edit: I looked into maybe fixing the source myself, but I didn't like the language/platform it is in. I think it's MFC, or Delphi, I can't remember, something involving Win32 and C++, and I just didn't want to mess with it.

Post Edited (Dennis Ferron) : 2/23/2007 8:28:01 AM GMT