Adafruit Fritzing

[Lynn Hepler]

Ifit's used for its intended purpose, which is for simple wiring diagrams, and if some basic skill in layout is employed, and if its intended scope of application is limited to wiring something, then everything is fine. It's just that many people fail to recognize that one or more of the aforementioned conditions is not met. Then offer such diagrams as a substitute for schematics which rightfully frustrates people who use both separately for their intended purpose.

Regarding the scribbles, one may wonder, but I have the impression that such scribbles have a surprisingly high success in communicating what someone has been utterly unable to clearly express in language.

I noticed Make magazine just shows pictures, it is very annoying. Call it stubborn or unwilling to come into the 21st century, but I think too much short term "progress" comes at the expense of long term continued success. I could go on about the Arduino preprocessor here ya know.

Perhaps it is the necessary direct representation of the physical that Fritzings require that is most dismaying. Schematics don't adhere to how parts look, how they are arranged, the color of the wires &c. It is simply and purely the connections between the components - a properly laid out schematic is full of a certain kind of information, and only that. There are standard and better ways to show the rest of what someone might want to say about a project.

Fritzings aren't horrible and I suppose if stranded on a desert island with a bunch of components and only Fritzings guiding me to making my electric escape rocket ship I would make due, but to me it is about like

OK not that bad, but I do think ppl should just man up and learn to read and write, whatever they are reading and writing, in the manner that will most effectively communicate with the broadest audience, especially if they are on hands and knees asking for our help. I especially include basic knowledge of a simple programming language before you try to, well, pick any number of projects presented here that are clearly more than a bit out of reach for a poster's current level of knowledge.

Isn't the working assumption that a typical Arduino user asking for help here are to be treated as "newbies"? You can't reasonably expect a newbie to produce an schematic. For all we know, he/she can be a twelve year old gifted with an Arduino kit by his/her parents and told to play with it or learn some programming.

Or, it may be because even though a fritzing diagram will show wiring relationships (of a sort) and part numbers of ICs, the fact is there are just so many chips out there that unless one has a photographic memory of the pinouts of each and every one they're literally just images of little black rectangles connected by colored lines. At least with 74 series chips you have pretty good idea where Vcc and GND are. Think of all the others where even those two pins are in 'non-standard' locations. Same applies to three-terminal devices and things like special purpose breakout boards.

working as a teacher I have watched very often that low performance-students often take ruler and a sharpened pencil to take ten minutes time to create a high accurate drawing where a 20 second free hand drawn sketch would be sufficient.

My explanation is they feel the need to create a "very good" result at least here if they are unable to solve the main exercise they have been given.

I did some fritzing and it took me a long time to find parts that really fit. So there is a certain danger beeing in a hurry to choose a part that looks similar but does not fit. So it looks "pretty" and maybe accurate but gives wrong information.

I use to tell an exaggerated example: Your boss tells you "drive to the customer and measure height of and width between the bricked pillars for the garden gate". And you go drive buying a camping table, chair ruler and pencil, drawing-paper, laser-distance-meter then sit down at the customer taking 30 minutes time to draw a highly accurate drawing of the entrance. Don't forget the flowers and the flooring! Coming back after two hours. Just to hear your boss say: why didn't you take a folding rule and the last receipt from your wallet to write down "height 43 inch width 315 inch?" or if you are so high-fascinated by your smartphone take a picture with comment "customer miller "height 43 inch width 315 inch?"

StefanL38:

Working as a teacher I have watched very often that low performance-students often take ruler and a sharpened pencil to take ten minutes time to create a high accurate drawing where a 20 second free hand drawn sketch would be sufficient.

My objection is to the usual sort of Fritzing diagram that includes a solderless breadboard. I just have no confidence that I can spot either correct or incorrect wiring connections in that sort of diagram.

Even the worst hand-drawn pencil sketch is less ambiguous. And, to my mind, the discipline of making the pencil sketch can often lead to an "AhHa" moment where a hitherto unidentified error is discovered.

We are likely going to want a schematic. Not a pretty Fritzing Lego picture. We are used to thinking of a circuit according to its function, not its physical layout, so the schematic diagram is the language in which we understand the circuit.

There is little commonality between a proper schematic diagram and pretty Fritzing pictures, the use of the latter is just trying to dumb it down to "Lego" building blocks. Pretty Fritzing pictures are useless for engineering

or diagnostic purposes.

A schematic shows how everything is connected and is the standard for all electronics. It is clear and unambiguous. Fritzing artworks are useless to real electronics people and can cause those people to skip past your enquiry altogether. And those are the people most likely able to help you.

That about sums it up. I'm the other grumpy oldtimer, who started reading circuits in the 1950 Lamphouse Annual. I think it's a bit much to expect kids who have just got an Arduino kit for Christmas to get off actual physical layout, find a pencil, and then do all that zigzag stuff.

And I don't agree with the bit I have highlighted. The quality of the drawing generally does not matter. In my experience the information in a drawing is a great deal less ambiguous and much easier to comprehend quickly - even if it is wrong.

If I wanted to satisfy myself that a Fritzing diagram with a breadboard was correct I think I would need to make a pencil drawing of the connections. And I could easily introduce other mistakes doing that.

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