It’s pretty smart about autorouting, and you can still make manual edits. Figure 4 is what Figure 2 looks like after autorouting. Fritzing has a nice autorouting feature that cleans up your connections. But you can put the traces wherever you want by simply clicking and dragging.Īny change you make in any of these views is automatically updated in the other views. The printed circuit board (PCB) view isn’t the best example because it’s just a conversion of the breadboard view, without any editing to put the traces in sensible locations. Understanding how to read schematics is essential if you really want to learn to hack electronics because schematics are product documentation and they tell you everything about the hardware that you buy. Studying your own schematics is a great way to learn to read them. You also have the option of the Schematic view ( below). If you’re used to cobbling up diagrams like this in diagramming software, you will be pleased with the ease and prettiness of Fritzing. Library parts need to be in specific sizes and file formats, and the Creating custom parts tutorial tells how. And remember, it’s nice to share - that’s how the parts libraries were created in the first place. If the parts you want are not in the library, then you can use the Parts Designer to create them. Breadboard view is a brilliant simulation that comes with a giant library of parts organized by brand name and model, so you can drag and drop your exact parts into your diagram. I work in Breadboard view the most because I’m not a wizened old electronics guru who can draw schematics in my sleep. The default is the Breadboard view ( below). Three Viewsįritzing can show your project in three views. Fritzing is cross-platform and also runs on Mac OS X and MS Windows. You can download and install it, or you might be using a good Linux distro like Mint or Ubuntu that already includes it and keeps up with current releases. You can browse the Projects page, and download project files without creating an account. This takes you to a login page on when you create an account you can upload and share your projects. Fritzing lets inexperienced electronics noobs make great-looking schematics and circuit diagrams, and even design and build their own printed circuit boards.įritzing is designed to encourage sharing, and has a “Share online” command in the File menu. On the software side check out the new Fritzing project.

Arduino, Beagleboard, and Raspberry Pi give us hundreds of inexpensive hardware components to play with. This is the best time to get into electronics because we have an abundance of high-quality hardware for cheap and great software for free.

It is a powerful tool for making schematics, prototyping circuits, and designing printed circuit boards.

Fritzing is the sophisticated new electronics application with the funny name.

Raspberry pi fritzing template