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Over the last few days I've been playing around with my Arduino and have finally got as far as interfacing it with other electronic components rather than just writing software to run on it. Whilst it is easy to store the software side of multiple Arduino projects safely I wasn't entirely sure of the best way of recording the hardware setup -- basically I want to be able to take a snapshot of a project so that at some later date I can recreate it, either because I messed something up or because I'm playing with multiple projects at the same time and reusing components. It turns out that the solution is obvious: Fritzing.If you look at any of the Arduino tutorial pages (e.g. the basic blink demo) you can see that it contains both a visual representation of the project and a traditional circuit diagram. I'd always assumed that these were produced separately but I was wrong.
These diagrams are all drawn using Fritzing. Fritzing supports three views of a project: breadboard, schematic and PCB. The breadboard view shows a drawing of your project that is almost a photograph of the real thing. The schematic view gives a traditional circuit diagram, and the PCB view allows you to convert a prototype into a PCB that could be manufactured. As far as possible, changes in one view are reflected in the other views.
This means it is easy to document a project simply be recreating it in the breadboard view and allowing Fritzing to generate the circuit diagram for you.
On top of all that the people behind Fritzing have also produced Fritzing Fab: a cheap way of printing custom PCBs. So you can easily prototype an idea with an Arduino, record the prototype in Fritzing, and then generate a permanent version by printing and populating the PCB. I haven't got as far as needing to print a PCB yet, but given how integrated the steps are it could turn out to be really useful. If nothing else expect any future Arduino related posts to include Fritzing generated images.
Wonderful.....I will seriously think about this. Could pass many a dark winters day.
ReplyDeleteIt's helping me pass wet summer days that's for sure! Mind you I'm having to reach an awful long way back in my memory to remember enough electronics not to fry LEDs with the wrong resistors etc.
DeleteIf you do fancy having a play with an Arduino then maybe have a go at a lightning trigger for your camera -- you could get some really interesting photos assuming you could find a lightning storm!
DeletePlenty of donner und blitzen at the moment. I'll have a go this winter. It will take me ages. I am useless with software and electronics so a good excuse to part rectify the matter.
DeleteYeah we had thunder this afternoon but I didn't actually see any lightning. I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive about doing any serious electronics as it's so long (probably 20 years) since I last did any, and even then I wasn't exactly great at it (I blew an LED in an electronics kit I was bought as a present within two days of opening it). What has changed in that time of course is the internet. There are so many tutorials and help pages that I quickly managed to knock something together as you will see in the next post whenever I finish writing it!
DeleteI looked at the lightening link and the circuit he used. I suspect a variable capacitor would be required to control sensitivity but there again what do I know about it.
DeleteThe last circuit I built was a radio receiver to control a model glider the capacitor ended up bigger than than the circuit and servo motor......I had a wee bit of bother with oscillation.
Yeah that circuit did look a little simplistic but it did seem to produce some reasonable photos so it's difficult to tell.
DeleteThe last circuit I built was an AM radio where I had to hand wind the receiver coil! Do we still have AM radio stations I could even pick up?