[SGVLUG] CAD - circuit diagrams

[Tod E. Kurt]

On May 5, 2006, at 9:41 AM, <juanslayton at dialup4less.com>  
<juanslayton at dialup4less.com> wrote:
> Does anyone know of a good program to draw and print circuit  
> diagrams.  Not PC board layout, just the diagrams.
>
> John


Eagle (http://www.cadsoftusa.com/ ) is pretty much the standard of  
free schematic capture programs used by hobbyists. It works on Linux,  
Mac OS X, Windows. There are many good tutorials on the net for using  
Eagle.  It *requires* a 3-button mouse and breaks many rules of good  
GUI design. (putting it in league with most other schematic  
programs)  I recommend it.

Still clunky, but getting better and open-source, is the 'gschem'  
part of the gEDA suite (http://www.geda.seul.org/ )  Last time I used  
it it went even farther than Eagle in throwing out the two decades of  
GUI guidelines, but I've seen a few intrepid souls produce working  
schematics and boards built with it.

With any schematic capture program, the first most important aspect  
is "how big is its part library?"  Eagle's is nicely big, no idea  
about gschema.  The second most important is "can I create my own  
parts?".  In Eagle you can and it's pretty easy.  gEDA's "symbol"  
library is smaller but seems to be only schematic symbols with no  
physical footprints, making it useless to quickly lay out boards.   
(not something you think you need right now, but may in the future)

In short, download Eagle and it's tutorials and draw a few circuits.   
It works.

-=tod