Schematics

[herbymcduff]

How do I take a schematic from electronics workbench, and paste it on my posts?

 

[Chippie]

herby......here's how I do it using Eagle lite.........


Draw out schematic, click on file, export image, paste to clip board, then open "Paint " in windows...... Edit, paste. image appears in Paint.Save as ....title of circuit. Then open an application like Paintshop pro.......load image saved as .bmp and resave as jpeg.(should reduce image size from
xxxkbytes as bmp file to xx kb as jpeg)


HTH Chip

 

[Pilot]

Chip,

I've found that Multibench Workshop does not appear to capture everything to the clipboard.

Herbymcduff,

Just ran a few tests and found the only way I can do it is..

Print the schematic through Acrobat Distiller - This saves it as a *.pdf

As the board will not allow pdf attachments, open the pdf then save as a jpg.

Attach as normal.

Whacky or what?

 

[Chippie]

If it works for ya why not 8)

 

[laroche73]

posting schematics

Hi, I'm fairly new to this board and was wondering what programs people were using to post small schematics here. After searching the net and trying out several free schematic/CAD programs, here's what I settled on for my Win98SE system (for now).

I'm using TinyCad to draw simple schematics. It's open-sourced and pretty easy to use. Also, it's easy to edit and add to the library symbols.
After playing for about an hour I could do what I wanted with it.

http://tinycad.sourceforge.net/

Once the schematic is entered, copy it to the Windows clipboard. Draw a box around the circuit before capturing to give the schematics a small border. Then paste the schematic into the IrfanView image viewer.

I use IrfanView because it's free (for non-commercial uses), and allows you to convert schematics into a large variety of formats.

http://www.irfanview.com/

Then save the image to disk as a .gif file and attach to your post.

It sounds like most of you use a similar approach, using your own favorite schematic editors...

- CAL

 

[mechie]

Not quite ...

Call me a turkey but
I do all my schematics in M$ Paint :shock:

I tried a few programs out and decided I prefer a simple paint package,
it gives me all the freedom I want, it loads quickly and I think the the results are nice and crisp.
I save images as a .gif to attach to this forum or monochrome .bmp.

I know I'm not totally alone in doing this - I forget who else it was - they have a picture that contains all their pre-defined symbols so they can just copy-paste bits as required.

 

[Chippie]

Re: Not quite ...

Call me a turkey but
I do all my schematics in M$ Paint :shock:

.........and why not its simple and easy to use and is a resident app on most machines

I know I'm not totally alone in doing this - I forget who else it was - they have a picture that contains all their pre-defined symbols so they can just copy-paste bits as required.

Yeah I've seen it too, again I cant recall where I saw it either, more than likely the same web site :wink: ........

 

[laroche73]

schematic entry

good point, chippie. I tend to overlook anything from M$oft, even though their software runs my machine at times :?. I still think that basic schematic programs are superior to paint programs, because they're designed for a specific purpose, with little excess baggage. At least they should be, and I'll try to patronize the ones that fit the description...

It's worth spending an evening or two trying some of the free ones; some are far more intuitive than others. Of course "intuitive's" a slippery word...

I spent one night trying out several freely available schematic programs, and here are the two sticking points I noticed:

1) Non-standard formats. Many of the board vendors provide excellent schematic entry packages, yet save data in a proprietary format that requires special viewers to read. Good luck with that.

2)Non-MS packages. I really wanted to use Xcircuit on this machine, but the cygwin libraries take up quite a bit of space, and it requires an Xserver running on windows. When I have time I'll try again, but Xcircuit is really meant for linux/unix.

By the end of the evening, I'd found that TinyCad & Irfanview together did the job with a small learning curve. It's just one opinion, I'd like to hear more...

 

[Electric Rain]

I use MS Paint too. The only thing I don't like about, is that you have to zoom in to get those "pixel perfect" lines. (Wires.) So, that's why I'm downloading Tinycad as I wright this. Oop, it's done! Gotta go try it now!

 

[nettron1000]

Laroche, i was surprised when you mentioned, Irfanview. I thought i was the only one using it, great to see im not alone. I think Irfanview is great.

I use Irfanview all the time for resizing , re-formatting, and capturing images. I mainly use Eagle schematic Editor and Express.Sch for drawing schematics, occassionally i use TurboCad when i want to make block diagrams , ladders or pictorials.

When i want to upload a drawing i first use Irfanview's screen capture feature, this saves the drawing as a Jpeg to a file in just one move ( control F11). Once its in Irfanview i can do just about anything with it before i upload it.



BTW i use Pics Online as my image host.

 

[Henrico]

Templates

Here is another site that has a good template....

**broken link removed**

 

[jonrans]

Yes, Tony has some good symbols. He emailed me his template and I was able to get what I did not have. Good circuits too. Build many of them!

 

[plot]

You guys are overlooking the powers that most schematic editors have... they are also SPICE simulators, so you can simulate the circuit and see if it actually works before trying to build it! If it fails simulation... why bother? Plus, you can easily change values of resistors, capacitors, etc. during the simulations until you acheive your desired output... so there's also less calculations involved!

I recommend SwitcherCad III from www.linear.com, it's absolutely free.