Schematic drawing

[Chris J Dixon]

It occurs to me that, in case I forget how it all works, or to help anybody else who might have to dive in and sort it out, that a record of the interconnected knitting between my Hi-Fi, TV (plus PVR, DVD player, soundbar...) and computers might be really useful.

Conceptually, representations of the connectors on the component units, possibly scans from manuals, need to be joined by lines representing the wiring. Ideally these would maintain their linkage when adjusted for layout purposes as the picture develops.

What software would be best to use for this?

I have considerable experience of producing both circuit and wiring diagrams, back in my working days, but they were all in pencil on drawing film. Yes, I am that old! :-(

Chris

[Davey]

I have just created a wiring diagram for my old car, using the original as a base, but modifying it to reflect numerous changes over the years. I used LibreOffice Draw. It doesn't make the interconnects follow any movements, but I offer this as my solution. I'm sure there are better programmes out there, and I will watch this thread with interest.

[Andy Burns]

It certainly does allow connections be "elastic" between their connecting points

[Chris Green]

After quite a few years using Dia, Visio and specialised schematic drawing programs like gschem (part of Geda) I found drawio (web site, draw.io) and find it excellent for circuit diagrams.

You can use it 'on the web' or you can download a standalone version to run on your computer.

[Jeff Gaines]

I did the same for the kit that taps into my HDMI feed, I used Paint (or Paint.net) and saved it as a png.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Personally I use corel draw, from about 2005

The combination of freehand and the ability to snap to the right angle and so on makes it a good balance between artistic and draughting type drawing

[Woody]

Just had a look at dataio and I'm not sure - for example it doesn't appear to have any electrical diagram specific items? When you are used to it (and it doesn't take much learning) Visio is my favourite. It has the advantage that you can buy it stand-alone as distinct from part of Office. You may even find slightly older versions on eBay for not much moolah. The other prog that used to be very very good and amazingly easy to use was Serif PagePlus. You might find a copy that you can download, otherwise Serif now operate as Affinity and I'm not sure whether you would need Publisher or Designer of indeed if either would suit your purpose. Not cheap but does a very good job.

[Chris Green]

It does, they take a little digging to find them.

[RJH]

+1 for Draw.io - I use it for garden/DIY projects - and quite quick to learn.

[John Rumm]

For electronic circuits, kiCad 6 is pretty good - does circuits, PCB layouts, BOM, netlists, and generates Gerber files etc.

For wiring diagram stuff I tend to use Visio - these days although MS try really hard not to sell it to you[1], you can find plenty of places that will sell you a (possibly legit![2]) one for £20 or so. That understands connectors and will reroute them when you move things.

[1] you can rent it as an add-on for Office 365 of course! [2] The ones that have you download the ISO to install it somewhat less so, than the ones that sell what MS accepts as 5x5 codes that you can enter into a microsoft account, and add the license to your account.

So this I did in visio :

This in the KiCad schematic editor :

Not tried it yet, but for full on 3D CAD, lots of people seem to like Onshape:

They have a free version for hobbyists / makers

Or sketchup can still be good.

[Theo]

For straight up vector graphics, with no semantic meaning to the lines etc, Inkscape. Also for scale drawings and for basic 2D CAD.

For drawing circuit schematics for PCB design, Kicad.

For drawing electrical/hydraulic/pneumatic diagrams which aren't intended to become a PCB (eg how to wire a house or a heating system), QElectrotech.

For your use case I'd probably pick QElectrotech, but it may need symbols drawing for things like TVs, DVDs, etc, as the library it comes with is more aimed towards industrial control systems then A/V. If adding that stuff was too much of a big ask, I'd fall back to Inkscape.

Theo

[Theo]

(assuming this is draw.io)

Click on the left sidebar 'More shapes' and then scroll the list down to the bottom and there's an Electrical tickbox.

It does seem to have a rather useful set of libraries for 'marketing' type system diagrams - 'customer', 'server', 'internet', 'mobile', which makes it useful as a Visio type replacement as well as for general diagramming.

Theo

[Chris J Dixon]

Thanks for all the interesting suggestions, I am looking into them.

I have Office 365, but not Visio, yet. I have an aged copy of TurboCad Deluxe 19, which is fine for drawing, but unless I pay a lot to upgrade, it can't import graphics like scans of the various equipment back-panels, which I was hoping to be able to use, rather than recreate.

I haven't yet fathomed if I can achieve much in Publisher or Powerpoint.

Chris

[Brian Gaff]

Why not just label the cables? I'm not sure if you need software, you could draw it out in coloured crayons and simply make a copy using the camera on your mobile. I don't normally suggest inaccessible solutions, but in this situation where only you are doing it a combination of labbled cables and coloured lines on a hand made drawing would be fine. Brian

[Tricky Dicky]

If you have Office 365 the vector drawing app within Word will produce excellent 2D schematics and although the list of shapes is quite basic it is quite easy to make up a library of ones you want to use keep them in a Word Doc and simply copy and paste as required. If you use the grid, elements can be made to easily align.

I produced a Breadboard drawing onto which I could easily drop components on, aligned with the holes. When needing to do simple circuits I could also rapidly produce diagrams using a bank of saved circuit symbols. The other factor is that anything that can be imported into Word can be used with the drawing program

[Chris J Dixon]

Because that really doesn't help if you are trying to understand how it all works. It would also mean disturbing quite a lot of cables.

The biggest problem with using paper is that when, inevitably, you realise that something has to be moved around to help understanding, you pretty much have to start again.

Additionally, the ability to zoom to whatever detail level helps you to work on a particular detail can be really useful.

Chris

[Animal]

I'd use a text editor.

[Chris J Dixon]

Yes ASCII art is a forgotten skill, probably not without reason. ;-)

Chris

[Theo]

similar tools.

The OP can use emoji as their symbol library :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I spent nay tears of my life drafting,then altering in pencil till it all got to be a mess, then redrafting with pen and ink...including the one time my lab was so hot that sweat kept making the ink run. The boss said on hearing that (he was German) "so, we drink beer instead" and we did,

Yes. Its the editability and the lack of ink that appeals to me. Even if it ends up a s a massive A1 PDF, you can still zoom in on (and print) the bit you want to check.