Schematics and images for documentation
When I am working on a electrical or RF design project I like to create nice documentation for the effort. Frequently I am sharing my ideas with friends over the Internet as I work through the iterative design process. Creating those images usually has been either JPG exports or screen-captures from my schematic capture or PCB design software. (Things like TinyCad, Free PCB, PCB Express, Eagle, KiCad, etc)
Today I was reading a tutorial at: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystal
and I noticed the nice visual (physical) representation of the circuit. I noticed that it was created with a tool called Fritzing. http://fritzing.org/
It turns out that Fritzing is an Open Source project. It allows you to draw images like the one above, it does the schematic capture, and PCB layout with auto-routing. It appears that you can export the files as images to web, gerber, and also send them to fab houses. --The tool will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I installed it on my Ubuntu 11.10 64bit machine and had it running in about 2 minutes. I am going to work on an Arduino tutorial today (I am still getting my feet wet with the platform) and as part of that effort I will try to draw out the project with Fritzing to see what it can do. I see a lot of potential for this tool if it performs well.
73 de NG0R
Today I was reading a tutorial at: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LiquidCrystal
and I noticed the nice visual (physical) representation of the circuit. I noticed that it was created with a tool called Fritzing. http://fritzing.org/
It turns out that Fritzing is an Open Source project. It allows you to draw images like the one above, it does the schematic capture, and PCB layout with auto-routing. It appears that you can export the files as images to web, gerber, and also send them to fab houses. --The tool will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I installed it on my Ubuntu 11.10 64bit machine and had it running in about 2 minutes. I am going to work on an Arduino tutorial today (I am still getting my feet wet with the platform) and as part of that effort I will try to draw out the project with Fritzing to see what it can do. I see a lot of potential for this tool if it performs well.
73 de NG0R