The other thing is that the core Fritzing breadboard SVG (the type of breadboard I use) is almost 600KB. Part of that is a library of SVG components, built on the same scale, to work with diagrams, and, you guessed it, with breadboard layouts.īut, you cant build interactive layouts for tutorials, and it requires a program to design your layouts. In practice, it is not as widespread as it should be.įritzing is an open source hardware initiative to help various type of people ( designers, programmers, artists etc) to work with electronics. In theory, it shows a lot of potential, and can replace Flash. For example, one can attach events to SVG groups, and it is possible to modify properties of the SVG XML tree from Javascript. It is supported by most modern browsers, and it is possible to interact wth SVG in a web page. SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), is an xml vector format. Well, I finally got some time today to get something working. Now I can produce excellent Fritzing diagrams for the new SwitchDoc Labs products.In the article entitled " Rasberry Pi: 2 bit H Bridge" I said that I was working on a way to put breadboard layouts on the blog. The SVG file now rendered in the Fritzing Parts Editor. I ended up loading the Illustrator SVG file into Inkspace and saving it as Plain SVG from Inkscape. I would get a Fritzing render error popup. I could not load the Illustrator SVG files (no matter what version of SVG I exported) into the Fritzing Parts Editor. The trick is to turn your multi monitor display to one display (or mirror the main display) and then you can use Inkspace (I’m using OS X 10.10.1). Inkscape also works well (it is clumsy with the Mac. It is also expensive, but probably worth it. It has clear descriptions and a good layer editor. The Fritzing Adobe Illustrator ProblemĪdobe Illustrator is a very good program for dealing with SVG files.
I know that this has some relationship to the well known 90dpi / 72dpi problem, but this solved my problem. After trying everything I could think of in Illustrator and Inkspace, I finally opened up a text editor and edited the SVG file to change (in the header) from 100% to 200% which sized my board correctly. No matter how I set the scale in Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape, it came out about 30mm when I loaded the image in the Fritzing part editor. I have a SunAir Board that measures 65mm square. The Big Red Block disappears! The Fritzing Board Scaling Problem Lesson: Connect all of your connections in the Fritzing part editor. Success! As with many of these problems, I felt rather stupid afterwards. I added it in Fritzing breadboard view and the big red block had disappeared and I had two connections. I started wondering if Fritzing would show a red block if I had unconnected pins (46/48 in this example) and so I tried a two pin IC and connected two pins. I knew that SVG files have lots of graphic elements that are not pins (so Fritzing must handle this) and not a desired connector. I put on my thinking cap (made of tin foil, of course) and noticed that the color for unconnected was red and I wondered if some graphic was covering the whole board. There was nothing on the web about this, except one obscure reference with no answer. I spend the next 20 hours trying to track down what had gone wrong with Eagle, Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator and Fritzing. I wanted to see if the part is the right size and how it looks in the Fritzing Breadboard view, so I connected two of the 48 connections and then added it into the Breadboard view. I exported the SVG graphics from Eagle using an ULP and ultimately brought the graphics into the Fritzing part editor. I was building a 48 connector Fritzing model for the upcoming SwitchDoc Labs product SunAir (a Solar Power controller / sun tracker and phone charger). I’m documenting them here to save others time that may be doing the same thing. Here are the three problems that cost me a lot of time in the process. I found the editor and process clumsy, but ultimately successful. Here is a SparkFun Tutorial that does a pretty good job. The purpose of this note is to save others time with the Fritzing New Part Editing tool.
I like schematics, but I understand the value of these breadboard diagrams and add them to all of our documentation to help beginners over the hump of the learning curve.įor example, here is a Fritzing diagram for the SwitchDoc Labs External WatchDog Timer: External WatchDog Timer Connection to Raspberry Pi B+ Fritzing diagrams do make it easier to build breadboards using extant products. Problems: New Part Generation with Fritzingįritzing ( ) is an open source design package that makes electronics more available and readable, especially for the beginner and maker.