Day 1 - Drawn my first schematic but...

"How-to" questions from new engineers and designers. Please ask and respond here.
Post Reply
Message
Author
Juan
Posts: 2
Joined: 14 Mar 2018, 04:49

Day 1 - Drawn my first schematic but...

#1 Post by Juan » 14 Mar 2018, 05:27

Hi All

New to the forum, DipTrace and to introduce myself, I'm retired now aged 70 and in the 1960's I was captivated by electronics, so much so that I got a good college qualification in electronics and started my first job as an instrument tech. Problem was, electronics (transistors) was so new there were too few jobs in the UK. Over the years I did many things and for a long while earned my living as a VBA programmer. Never touched a line of code since I retired five years ago always planned to return to electronics as a hobby so here I am.

My project is bread boarded and working, made a few hand drawn sketches but it gets tiresome after a while so I have managed to draw my circuit using symbols in the schematics editor got rid of the errors and now I want to give components a value. I started with resistors and looked for a pattern only to find dimensions. What I really wanted was to see was a choice of 1/4W 5% thin film resistors. Why can't I see generic patterns for these after all the colour banding of resistors is standard why not the resistors themselves?

Alex
Technical Support
Posts: 3897
Joined: 13 Jun 2010, 23:43

Re: Day 1 - Drawn my first schematic but...

#2 Post by Alex » 15 Mar 2018, 03:31

There are RES400, RES500, etc. components and patterns in "Discrete" library. They are axial resistors with through holes.

Juan
Posts: 2
Joined: 14 Mar 2018, 04:49

Re: Day 1 - Drawn my first schematic but...

#3 Post by Juan » 16 Mar 2018, 05:51

Alex, thanks for the reply.

I'm using the latest freeware version so I guess not everything is available.

1. RES400 says RES-10.16/5.1 x 2.5 What do the numbers mean?

2. I drew my schematic before I switched on the page outline and my drawing is offset to one side. I zoomed out and selected everything expecting a panning tool to be available to move everything to the frame middle but cannot see one so is it possible? Not a problem in print preview as the panning tool IS there and I can save the drawing as a .bmp file.

3. I read this link: viewtopic.php?t=11972 but behaviour is not the same. I want to change the pin locations for a Maxim ICL7665CPA so that my schematic flows better; using F10 I can move the descriptors but not the pins. I managed to create a 'My Components Group' by copying the inbuilt Components library and adding the Maxim library to it but don't know how to change the pin locations.

4. I have placed some mosfets (2N7000) using Symbols EIC library (MOSFET_ENH_N) which show the drain, gate and source. When I try to use the pattern for 2N7000 with this symbol I have difficulty. If I use the symbol for a 2N7000 the pin outs are 1,2 and 3 what I want is d, g and s. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks.

Tomg
Expert
Posts: 2028
Joined: 20 Jun 2015, 07:39

Re: Day 1 - Drawn my first schematic but...

#4 Post by Tomg » 16 Mar 2018, 06:48

"...What do the numbers mean?..."
See this reference manual - https://diptrace.com/books/Pattern_names_help.pdf

"...I drew my schematic before I switched on the page outline and my drawing is offset to one side..."
Select/highlight all objects in your schematic (Ctrl + A) and perform one of the following two tasks...
* Grab one of the highlighted objects and drag everything to the desired location.
- or -
* Select a convenient grid size and use the arrow keys to move the selected/highlighted objects to the desired location.

"...Symbols EIC library (MOSFET_ENH_N)..."
Actually, it's in the "Symbols" library.

"...how to change the pin locations..."
1) Open the custom component in the Pattern Editor, drag the pins to the desired locations and resave the custom component library (Ctrl + S).
2) In the Schematic Editor right-click on the component (not its pads), select Update from Library in the pop-up menu and choose Selected Components in the fly-out menu.

"...what I want is d, g and s..."
1) Copy the desired pattern into a custom pattern library, rename the appropriate pins to "d", "g" and "s", and resave the custom pattern library (Ctrl + S).
2) Copy the desired component (MOSFET_ENH_N) into a custom component library, attach the newly-modified custom pattern to it and resave the custom component library (Ctrl + S).
3) Use the new custom component in your schematic.
Tom

Post Reply