I tried to stick with Fritzing for a while, as it certainly is the easiest to use, but it appears (at least for me) to be very buggy.
For example I went to edit a user supplied part and got myself and the programme into all sorts of knots. Eventually I thought the best thing to do was to remove the part and all my attempts at modifying it. Easier said that done. Once I thought I had managed to do this I tried to re-install the original part, only to be greeted by a message along the lines of part with that id is already installed. Uninstalling the whole programme and re-installing caused many parts not found errors. There, I gave up. :0
Is there anything around that is fairly simple to use, but less buggy?
Cheers
Bob
What is it you want to do?
For schematic capture, posting something quick for the forum, I use expresspcb.com. Easy to use, easy to modify & save symbols, easy to layout parts on a board to visualize the fit or to capture what you've done. Not the best for actually routing a board, poor rubber banding.
For schematic capture & board design, where I will in the end create gerber files for buying boards, I use eagle from cadsoftusa.com.
Fritzing can make a pretty picture of your layout, but crappy schematics for debugging and understanding what the circtuit actually does, which is what engineers want. I've never seen a decent schematic posted what was generated in fritzing.
Thanks for your input CrossRoads. To answer your question, right at the moment, all I wish to do is "document" my breadboard prototypes. Perhaps Fritzing is actually the best (i.e. easiest) to do this?
Cheers
I'd use expresspcb then. You want to capture a schematic of the design - the physical layout is not so important. Who really cares which hole in the solderless breadboard you used? More important is knowing what pins you connected to, and what those pins do.
For example, this tells me a lot more than trying to figure what pretty colored wires in a fritzing picture are connected to.
Point duly noted CrossRoads, no need to be pretty in this case.
Thanks again.
Bob
I am bringing this topic back up because I have had the same issues that @bullockbob had but unlike @CrossRoads, I do need a diagram showing the physical components and I need it to be easy to follow. I do need a traditional schematic as well.
I am working on a programming project for school, and I need a top down illustration of the wiring and connections, as well as a traditional schematic.
I installed Fritzing because it was free, I like the way they look in "breadboard" view for my presentation, and I needed something easy to use.
Firstly, for some reason windows does not consider it a program. I can click the file to run the application, but when I search for it, there is no "Fritzing" program, just folders. Not a huge deal, but irritating.
In the beginning, it worked really well, and is simple to use. I made a lot of progress on the illustration. Then, when I opened it parts of the screen would not load at all, no matter how long I waited. It is difficult to label a diagram you cannot see. It also just runs really slowly overall.
The last issue is that there are components in my circuit that are not in the Fritzing Library. Unfortunately, my rubric says that I need "an accurate and professional illustration of the specific components used. This includes pin assignments for the exact part, part names, and approximate size" which cannot be achieved easily.
Does expressPCB have an easy to use interface similar to fritzing? Can it construct colored, professional diagram of a top down view?
Thanks,
Tyler
