TheBackShed.com

Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Circuit diagram software

Page 2 of 2

Author

Message

HankR
Senior Member

Joined: 02/01/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 209

Posted: 07:45pm 23 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

2.4 MB of .exe content; totally free (and open source); maintenance and improvements ongoing.

Have only installed to check that it works. Unable right now to have any opinion on its ease of use.

Circuit Diagram

Grogster

Admin Group

Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9584

Posted: 08:47pm 23 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Herry said Yes, now OK. Only problem is getting straight wires in the right place. My mouse hand either goes too far or not enough, leaving a badly jagged line. Normally I would nudge the position of one end of the line using keyboard CTRL-Arrow, but that doesn't work on one end of a line. It moves the whole line.

Left-click the line you want to change - it will change to the colour purple, with white boxes at each point on the line it changes direction. The mouse pointer will change to a solid black arrowhead when you hover over one of these boxes. Press and HOLD the left mouse button on any one of the white squares and move the mouse, and only that part of the line will move:

Left-click anywhere outside of the line to keep the changes - the purple line will go back to normal black colour.

It's a good idea to zoom right in to the schematic using the magnifier tool so that you can more easily align things.

You can also adjust the grid, if the default of 1mm is too big: OPTIONS/ADJUST GRID...

I have a tick in the 'More contrast' checkbox, as this makes it easier to see things - for me.Edited by Grogster 2016-03-25

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

Herry

Senior Member

Joined: 31/05/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 261

Posted: 12:28am 24 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Yes, I can do it with the mouse but it overruns one way or another. The problem is that the nudge keys on the keyboard do not move one end. However, I will try the magnifying bit. That sounds as though it might help.

Senior?! �Whatever it says, I'm a complete and utter beginner...

Herry

Senior Member

Joined: 31/05/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 261

Posted: 03:53pm 26 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Just reporting on my experience with sPlan7. After an initial steep learning curve and about 2 days frustration (not bad for 75 yo), I am now very happy indeed with sPlan. IMHO it is well worth buying the full version (about $61 Australian, one off). I am solving the lines just missing by having less red wine before... CORRECTION ...mousewheeling a zoom and fixing at a big scale, as suggested. The only pity is that there is not an English forum -- only German -- and I only have two German words (I'm not quite sure what one of them means...). Also Googling any sPlan query brings up a host of irrelevant links because Splan is something else. But all good otherwise.Edited by Herry 2016-03-28

Senior?! �Whatever it says, I'm a complete and utter beginner...

Grogster

Admin Group

Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9584

Posted: 09:50pm 26 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

I use it quite often, so if you need help, feel free to post questions on the forum here, or you can just PM me if you like - happy to help if I can.

...and you won't need to use any German. Ironically, I am actually learning German!

In my case, I set the zoom-in to what I want first, and only zoom back out again, just to check that all looks good, before zooming back in again to do the actual work.
Much easier on the eyes in general.

Other then the 28-pin DIL you needed, I have not needed to design any special parts, as I find that all I need is included.

Make sure you put a tick in FILE/AUTOSAVE... to ensure that the PC will auto-save your work. I kept the 5min setting, but you can make that whatever you like. That way, if there is a power cut, you potentially could lose the last bit of your work, but you can restore from the backup file so you don't lose everything.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

sparksandsmoke

Newbie

Joined: 14/05/2015
Location: Ireland
Posts: 12

Posted: 10:20pm 26 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Just adding a few more suggestions to the list:

ProfiCAD (free edition) proficad.com

schematics.com (free, web based, draw diagrams using any device with a browser) - produces really clean output for use in printing or publishing(web or paper).

Got an old steam driven Win98 PC? Puppy linux on a live CD. Entire operating system and key apps in less than 150Mb, runs entirely in RAM.

Herry

Senior Member

Joined: 31/05/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 261

Posted: 10:42pm 26 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Grogster said
Make sure you put a tick in FILE/AUTOSAVE... to ensure that the PC will auto-save your work. I kept the 5min setting, but you can make that whatever you like. That way, if there is a power cut..

Thanks for your offer. And BTW, I have a UPS...

Senior?! �Whatever it says, I'm a complete and utter beginner...

Grogster

Admin Group

Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9584

Posted: 02:11am 27 Mar 2016

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

@ sparksandsmoke - Yeah, I have been playing with the latest Puppy Linux(Slacko64) over the last week or so. It's quite impressive for what it is, and much lighter then other distros. I am playing about with Samba to build a NAS using Puppy as the main OS. Slacko64 comes complete with a little app to let you share up to three folders using a simple point-and-click GUI, but using VI or other text editor, you can manually configure Samba without too much pain.

@ Herry - A UPS is a good move.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

Page 2 of 2

Print this page

To reply to this topic, you need to log in.