Good tools for drawing schematics

Question

I was going to add a bit of information to my post on a previous day using schematics and some instructions. What programs are being employed for this purpose?

I mostly want to see what others are using and that I can easily use to give descriptive schematics.

In a perfect world, and I know this is a case of me wishing, it would be:

1. Free.
2. Extremely easy to draw schematics in.
3. Allows simple production of waveforms for the inputs/outputs.

Answer 1

ViaDesigner is free, easy-to-use schematic capture and simulation that you use in your browser. Public designs are free and you start paying if you want private, team or implementation features. ViaDesigner lets you combine analog, digital and mixed-signal circuits in a unified simulation environment that supports VHDL-AMS, SPICE, VHDL and Verilog design entry formats.

VHDL-AMS sounds pretty complicated but you don't need to learn how to write VHDL-AMS or SPICE models to use ViaDesigner. Instead, ViaDesigner comes with a set of high-level design wizards that generate useful mixed-signal circuits like: gain stages, filters, analog to digital converters, DAC, linear & switching regulators, etc. Example wizards can be found here: ViaDesigner Wizards.

Here's some screenshots of the ViaDesigner schematic & simulation environment:

Ultimately, ViaDesigner.com is focused on letting you design your own mixed-signal custom chips easily and cost-effectively. ViaDesigner will soon have a complete IC design flow in the cloud. This implementation design flow isn't free but the goal is to enable custom mixed-signal IC design, verification and fabrication for about $10,000. That's a lot of money but typical IC design flows can be anywhere from $100,000 to $1-million.

Yes, I work at ViaDesigner & these are my biased opinions about the ViaDesigner.com and the ViaDesigner software but still I'm pretty excited about what we are putting together.

Answer 2

Loads. Most popular among hobbyists are probably EAGLE (there is a free limited version which is probably good enough for what you are describing) and KiCad (free and open source).

Answer 3

Fritzing might be what you're looking for. It has most of the "common" components (different Arduinos, LCDs, LEDs etc...).

Answer 4

I am providing you the complete list of 49 free electronics software which are used for the schematic and more electronics purposes.....

http://www.efytimes.com/e1/132694/Free-Software-On-Electronics

And on 50th tool which I have used, is Logisim. This tool provides the basic digital component to make any electronics circuit even microprocessor. This is the easiest tool which I have ever used.

Answer 5

EveryCircuit for absolute beginners. Actually a simulator rather than a schematic tool like KiCad/Altium. The advantage of EveryCircuit is that it animates current flow, which can be helpful when understanding the very basics. I'm surprised that it hasn't been mentioned yet.

I do believe though that as of writing, the user interface for EveryCircuit is quite "janky" (it actually drives me nuts) compared to CircuitLab which actually my current favourite simulator.

Answer 6

There another interesting one - www.DoCircuits.com - real like schematics can be captured and shared.

Answer 7

I use FastStone capture to post screen shots.

Here are the steps:

1. Ctrl + PrtScn
2. Drag the area I want to capture
3. It pops up the image
4. I click on ftp. It knows my domain and where to put it. It makes up a name based on the date. It copies the URL to the clipboard
5. I Ctrl + V the URL to the insert picture icon

That's it. You still have to have a schematic on your computer, but this addresses a large part of your question.

Here's an example: