Fritzing is a fantastic tool (and a huge collection of components and boards you can use in your designs) for sketching out your circuits, but it can do much more. Now Fritzing adds a new capability: a code editor built in to the Fritzing environment.
You can now go to fab.fritzing.org and order a PCB directly from your Fritzing sketch. (Just use your Fritzing.org account to log in.)
Today’s metaphorical yak is the representation in Fritzing of a $0.95 part, a knob potentiometer. Fritzing is a wonderful Open Source tool for designing electronic circuits. Its only shortcoming is that its library of components is not yet complete enough that it can be used to design all circuits. In my case, it’s lacking the SD card reader that I’m using, analog sticks and… this small $0.95 potentiometer. Well, in fact, for the potentiometer, I could have easily used one of the stock components from Fritzing that is close enough, but for my first component design, I wanted to start with a fairly simple part so I went ahead with it anyways, with the hope of having a better fit in the end.
[W]e are introducing further microcontroller alternatives into the Fritzing ecosystem. In the new release, due tomorrow, you will already get this sweet array of choices. Besides the Arduino and its variants Mega and Nano, you can now use Modified’s pico, mbed, Wiring and Wiring Mini, Basic Stamp, Propeller
I’m doing my 2nd Arduino project (and 2nd electronics project ever) and am trying to design some of the circuit stuff on computer instead of just wiring it up or scribbling some stuff on paper. I’m trying out Fritzing and am wondering if you have any other suggestions for software that can be used for breadboard, schematic and/or PCB design.
