Self Medicating > General DIY

Schematic drafting program?

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richidoo:
Is there a simple to use, free electronic drafting program? Can be all manual, no PCB tracing, no simulation, just to draw schematics, with symbols built in.
Thanks!
Rich

mgalusha:
Hmm, sorry I didn't see this sooner Rich. There are several that work pretty well and are free.

TinyCAD works pretty well and the author is very active. The project is open source. http://tinycad.sourceforge.net/

What I use most of the time is LTSpice. This is a free SPICE program from Linear Technologies and gives you SPICE in addition to schematic capture. http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/

You can also use PCB123 (http://www.pcb123.com/pcb123.html). Though they give it away in hopes that you will buy a circuit board, it's a pretty good schematic capture tool as well.

I actually prefer the interface of ExpressPCB and schematic capture but it won't print them mirrored for making your own boards. :(. Too bad, as the UI is quite nice. http://www.expresspcb.com/

mike

richidoo:
Thanks Mike, that is very helpful. A few of yours I had not heard of. I set my friend up with expressPCB because it looked simplest and he is not computer savvy. I will check out the others myself though.
Rich

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