Hi, what is some good SW for drawing logic diagrams?
Here are my desiderata
Thx
The term is "schematic capture". The good free program at the moment seems to be
Obviously, it does more than schematic capture
It does lets you insert text - they all seem to. Some of your other idiosyn cratic requirements may also be met.
The capacity to make one input to an OR or AND gate "invertible" probably w on't.
Schematic editors exist to document real circuits made with real parts, and you can only fiddle with the polarity of individual inputs to a logic gate inside a programmable logic device, and documenting how a programmable log ic device has been programmed is handled by other software.
The actual description is usually handle by a special purpose language - VH DL is one of them - though software systems for translating between differe nt kinds of documentation do exist, mainly for the terminally inflexible, a s in managers.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Visio is OK for simple block and logic diagrams. Old versions (I use
2002) are cheap. There are add-on logic symbol libraries, but I've made my own electronic symbols.It does good line work into Word, as .emf files.
It does colors, but personally I think that colored diagrams or schematics are tacky.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc trk jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Agreed. I use Visio 2007 for network diagrams. Old example: I especially like inserting JPG clip art of the various devices. However, I do use free shapes and stencils when available:
Tacky? Color coded wires make tracing signal paths on complex schematics easier. For example:
Extra credit for color 3D schematics: I did one schematic in 3D (isometric) many years ago but without color. My co-workers and managers were not impressed. They said it looked like an M.C. Escher print. When I supplied both 2D and 3D schematics to the test department, I noticed that the 3D version was what they preferred using, even though they also claimed it looked rather strange.
I don't have any favorite logic drawing program. I use whatever the customer is using, or whatever icon I can find on my messy desktop. Anything that will do flow charts will usually also do logic diagrams. If the OP wants to go shopping, I suggest displaying screen captures of various digital logic diagram software with: and pick something that looks useful. Also, check for tutorials on YouTube.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Car and appliance schematics are always hairballs that need all the help they can get. A good electronic schematic doesn't need colors.
Try doing a 700-part PCB schematic that way.
PCB schematics are usually multi-page with lots of off-page connectors to untangle the mess. Drawing every wire and every connection on one sheet is the road to insanity.
Our schematic sheet 1 is always the block diagram and table of contents to the other sheets.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc trk jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
I thought it was not unusual to add a small circle to one of the inputs to invert it.
true old school
NO.
just make a new symbol for each of the combinations needed
Been there, done that:
-- Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D
"Drawing" that can't netlist is useless except for trivial cases :-( ...Jim Thompson
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God, weren't those templates something else? About 10 yrs ago, I worked with a real dork who still drew schematics that way.
ith a real dork who still drew schematics that way.
They worked. I eventually mastered drawing OR and AND gates with just a com pass and set square, but a template was quicker, if less flexible.
Computer Aided Design made it lot easier to change your mind in mid-design (which is often a very good idea), bu the process of detailing and document ing a design involves rather more than putting lines on paper (unless you a re are churning out a new "design" every week or so, when the mechanic of g etting the lines onto the schematic in the right place can take up most of the "design" time).
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
ith a real dork who still drew schematics that way.
They worked. I eventually mastered drawing OR and AND gates with just a com pass and set square, but a template was quicker, if less flexible.
Computer Aided Design made it lot easier to change your mind in mid-design (which is often a very good idea), bu the process of detailing and document ing a design involves rather more than putting lines on paper (unless you a re are churning out a new "design" every week or so, when the mechanic of g etting the lines onto the schematic in the right place can take up most of the "design" time).
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
I usually draw schematics with pencil on blue-grid D-size vellum. But I draw freehand, no templates. Then my PC layout guy enters it into PADS.
I actually used a template last week, but that was to sketch out a panel layout, to put into a draft manual for a customer to review. I put hand-drawn stuff into preliminary manuals and proposals, and people seem to like it.
Proposal:
Visio version for real manual:
Panel layout, drawn with templates:
That will become Autocad or Solidworks.
Drawing is fun.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
That's because they were originally drawn on C or D size paper and reduced to A size so as to fit in a manual or book. They look just fine in the original sizes.
Sure, color isn't necessary. But it's like B&W television. Anyone that has switched from B&W to Color, never switches back to B&W. If your company introduces color schematics, you'll probably never go back to 1 color (B&W) drawings. Maybe that's why it's not very popular.
Ok, I'll concede that 3D doesn't scale very well without going to a larger paper size or balkanizing the schematic into multiple A size pages with connecting arrows. However, 3D does make drawings that connect various mechanical parts with wires easier to read.
Therefore, I must be insane. I like everything on one big sheet of paper. I spend much of my time troubleshooting. That involves tracing signals, which I find much easier to do with a giant size foldout schematic, than with a pile of A size pages with the signal path hopping from page to page. (Note that I do RF, which usually has only a few signal paths, unlike digital, which has far more). Big drawings were easy in the bad old days of pen plotters, which could plot schematics of almost unlimited length. However, these were obsoleted by xerography and inkjet technology, which require the entire image to be rasterized and saved in memory before the first drop of ink hits the paper. A step backwards, methinks. I also like the way long drawings can be rolled onto broomsticks, in the manner of the Torah.
Drivel: I learned to program on punched cards and teletype machines. The teletypes used continuous roll paper. I would print out my program on a long roll of paper, place the paper in the hallway, edit the program with a red pen, and punching new cards. 40 years later, I'm still printing out my program, dumping the pages on the floor, scribbling on them with a red felt tip pen, and later typing in corrections.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
with a real dork who still drew schematics that way.
And if anything goes wrong, you can blame the PC layout guy for misundersta nding your pencil sketches.
Or are wise enough not to point how sloppy it looks.
Ralph Morrison might worry about the ground return on the excitation electr ode in the first diagram. You are only interested in what it does to the in ner electrode, but it is squirting capacitative current into the rest of th e universe, and it would be nice to know what kind of ground return it find s to get back to the seven separate ground connections that are shown on th e diagram.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
~8% of men and
My average schematic is maybe 15 sheets, nominally D size, and one recent one was 31. Close to 1000 parts, including over a thousand balls on two FPGAs. That would be interesting on one page.
I use to work with a shipyard that drew hull sections 1:1 on paper, in a "lofting room." The draftsmen wore socks and walked/kneeled on the drawings. A little robotic thing followed the lines and was linked to a flame cutter in another building. This was ca 1970.
I spend much of my time troubleshooting. That involves
Punched cards, youngster? I started with paper tape. 10 bytes per second. Cards were a huge improvement to that.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
Pah. Luxury.
I started on 5cps 5 channel teleprinters.
Mind you, seeing 1 channel paper tape being read at
1000cps is fun - it goes horizontally for 6' before coiling up on the ground.(Be careful of paper cuts? What's a paper cut?)
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