Conversation with a new circuit designer

My kid's working for me, doing circuit design under my direction. I get this phone call:

Him: "so, is it OK if I put a 3.3V symbol upside down"

Me: "Well the rule of thumb is absolutely not, but if you must to make the thing understandable then I guess so.."

Him: "OK, well -- WAIT!! I can rotate this transistor! (click)"

Learning new things is fun, even if it's second hand.

--

Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Reply to
Tim Wescott
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I put voltage/gnd symbols any which way. Since the company requires that schematic symbols match the physical package (except for SSI gates/opamps and BGAs, go figure) the pins come out every which way. ...and so do the voltage symbols.

Reply to
krw

Everyone has a different way of doing it. I can see the logic of doing it that way, kinda, but if there's a clearly logical way of grouping the pins, that's how I do it.

Where I used to work, the Portland office was big on making schematics easy to read. We had another engineering group out of state which was big on making schematics fast. Manufacturing hated them, and loved us. At one point one of our Portland guys was looking at one of the other guys' schematics. The conversation went something like:

PDX: "It looks like you just dropped parts onto the page and connected them willy-nilly".

other guy: "You mean there's another way?"

--

Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Reply to
Tim Wescott

--
A poor workman blames his tools...
Reply to
John Fields

That's not an engineering schematic, it's a wiring diagram, and about the level you should stay with.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

It's not good to swap C and E on a transistor ;)

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Smirk >:-} ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142   Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

We try to keep NPN emitters down and PNP emitters up.

That must be awful for signal flow.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Reply to
John Larkin

If I had a choice, that's the way I'd do it. They allow it (as an option) for SSI stuff and BGAs (won't fit on a D-sized page) but nothing else.

Sounds like ADI's schematics. Yuck! My big bitch is connections by reference, though. What a PITA.

Figures.

Reply to
krw

You're an idiot, but that's not a surprise, here.

Reply to
krw

I know, all of your schematics only have a left edge. What an idiot.

Reply to
krw

It kinda works. Sometimes. ;-)

Reply to
krw

As do I.

Often it is. I make heavy use of busses/bundles. The tools allow the strands within bundles to be named anything. In an I2S interface, for example, I include all of the data lines and the bit, word, and m-clocks (all with standardized names). They fan straight out of the chip into the bus. On my schematics,

I also try to enter on the left side of the page and exit on the right but it's not always possible to make it look good. Our suppliers think my schematics are pretty easy to read, even with the crap tools we're forced to use. I spend a significant amount of time making them readable.

Others don't do so much or they work for someone who demands even opamps have "physical" symbols. If you want to see schematics with awful signal flows, look at a schematic with a dozen quad opamps on it, with the schematic symbols matching the package outlines. It's a mess but that's what is demanded.

Reply to
krw

Our stuff generally looks like

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which has one transistor sideways.

We create all our own schematic symbols, generally to make the first use flow nicely, but it generally reuses pretty well.

Lately we show all power and ground pins, on the main part or occasionally as another "gate section" off to the side.

I draw schematics by hand, on d-size vellum, and The Brat cads them for me. The finals print nicely on B size.

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I *hate* schematics that show, say, a 16 pin SO package as pins 1 through 16 in physical order, which I think you were talking about.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Reply to
John Larkin

I guess there are at least 4 possible uses for a schematic:

1> To provide a netlist for a PCB board. In which case does not matter what it looks like, as long as the connections are correct. No human is ever going to read it.

2> Provide a signal flow diagram for an engineer to study. In which case it must look logical.

3> Provide a part connection diagram for service. In which case it should resemble the actual physical layout, if possible.

4> Provide a pretty picture for management. In which case you better follow the management rules.

Something about not being able to please all the people all the time seems to apply here.

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Regards, 

Adrian Jansen           adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net 
Note reply address is invalid, convert address above to machine form.
Reply to
Adrian Jansen

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A narcissistic moron thinks everyone's an idiot because he can't 
understand them.
Reply to
John Fields

On a sunny day (Fri, 03 Jan 2014 21:10:25 -0800) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

No insult intended, but that looks very bad on the 4051. At one point you use numbers, and on the right side the selectors are A0-A2. the numbers could easily be confused with pin numbers, use Y0 Y1 or whatever. I agree with others krw? and would use both pin numbers and real physical layout if possible, PLUS what the signals do inside the square. Like this:

formatting link

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Seconded. Schematics, like source code, are for people to read. Keeping current generally flowing from top to bottom, and signals generally left to right when possible, is a big help.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

On a sunny day (Sat, 04 Jan 2014 06:38:30 -0500) it happened Phil Hobbs wrote in :

Oh, you make a big mistake. In John's schematics the opamps do not even have pin numbers. As I have worked in both design and service, maintenance too, I dare say that diagram is useless for repair, and documentation like that would not even be accepted by the broadcast organization I worked.

For repair and trouble shooting (and that always needed to happen 'now' and 'fast' as some director would flip out), and as renting a studio and having all artists at the right place and the right time costs more than you can possibly imagine, is often not repeatable either, good schematics were a must. That means, opening a map that has the layouts, pin numbers, symbols, block diagrams, and also training of people by the manufacturers.

Yes, if possible. signals often go both ways though, 'feedback', what not. Upside down text is idiotic and should never be done.

I also object to extremely small pieces of paper that you need to read with at least 10x magnification to find out the ink filled the symbols so you still do not know component values (had one like that last month).

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

Mine do, because they're often my actual work product, and get chucked over the wall to the client's layout folks. John's schematics go out via his daughter, who sits two cubicles down from his office, and who I imagine chooses which sections of the duals and quads to use. I doubt that their production and test folks ever see the originals.

I generally don't put pin numbers on transistors, except arrays.

If you're building something that takes a lot of maintenance, that's important. Not too many board-level things actually get serviced these days, though, apart from changing caps or obviously burnt components.

Sure, again if maintenance is the driver. Not so in my business.

Yup. I'm in the "4k7" camp for that reason.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

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