Last July I wrote about using Adobe Illustrator to design the schematics I publish here and why I prefer it (you can read that post here). In recent weeks I’ve come to realize two things: despite a great deal of effort on my part, I can’t really design printed circuit boards with Illustrator, and I had completely missed that I wasn’t drawing schematics; I was drawing wiring diagrams.

Let us address the second point first: I had always wondered why, in a schematics application (such as Eagle), when you placed an integrated circuit, for example, the pins were not displayed in sequence. Pins 12-18 might be, for example, in the upper-left-hand corner, while pins 1, 2, 8 and 11 might be in the lower left-hand corner, with pins 3-7, 9 and 10, might be scattered to what seemed like the wind.

I have lost the actual link, but somewhere recently I read a forum posting where it was patiently explained to we non-electrical engineers, that the pins are grouped by internal logical function rather than arranged physically. Also, many integrated circuits are available in a variety of formats – through-hole and surface mount and sometimes in a variety of surface-mount formats as well, where the pin numbers are not the same.

So, what I have been drawing have been diagrams that make it easier for me to breadboard (or perf-board) circuits. While those are beneficial, rarely can they be used for anything else.

My other major gripe with schematics programs (aside from the lack of choices in the Macintosh world) was the difficulty I had in making the wires actually attach. I can’t remember any specific applications, but I definitely remember that the large part of what turned me off to schematics applications was the actual difficulty I had in making wires connect.

Further, I had deluded myself into believing that I could create PCB files that could be sent to board manufacturing companies (called “Gerber files”) by using Illustrator. I had run across a set of instructions for converting Illustrator files to Gerber files and believed they would work.

And, after extensive experimentation, I found that they did … almost. The one part that doesn’t work is the ability to put text onto the silkscreen layer. If I were building PCBs exclusively for myself, that wouldn’t be a problem, but I have envisioned that the DMX/LED matrix circuit I hope to one day design will be something that I can give back to the community, and for those types of boards, you really need to indicate component positions with silkscreened text.

So, that was out.

A few weeks back I stumbled across a conversation on a forum where folks were talking about a schematics and PCB application called DipTrace. Most of the comments were positive; there were plenty of people who said it was easy to use; it had a free version for non-profit use that topped out at 300 pins (about twice what I’d need) and it created Gerber files.

The only downside was that it ran under Windows (patooie!), not on the Mac. I do have an old Compaq sitting here that I use to test web sites out on and to run the Christmas lights, so I thought I could actually break down and try to use DipTrace on it.

I was able to go through the tutorial in about an hour and had both a schematic and a Gerber file (albeit of only seven components, but nonetheless …) to show for it.

I’ve recently begun work on a new matrix circuit and rather than draw it in Illustrator, I decided to use DipTrace. I’ll post when I have something I feel comfortable showing.