Introduction to Fritzing Moncton Developer User Group 20 September 2016 Doreen A. Clemons 

Overview: What's Being Covered 1. Overview 2. “The Real Estate Tour” 3. Finding Components 4. Demo: Controlling 8 LEDs with 3 Wires (Pins) 

So who am I, right?  Chief cook and bottle-washer at Bonaventure Software  Hobbyist work with Arduino, Raspberry Pi  Don't like wasting (i.e., frying) components  Also, sometimes need to show circuit to others (e.g. StackOverflow) 

Fritzing Overview Photo Source: http://www.soa-world.de/echelon/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/3599257794_52f5cc0b09_o.jpg Core of a Cray I Supercomputer 

Overview  Free-as-in-beer: Windows, Mac, Linux*  By “Linux,” they mean Ubuntu  Text in dialog boxes sometimes wonky on 14.04 + Gnome Classic  Arduino/PICAXE integration may require later Linux versions  “Free” alternatives  Adobe: Requires account  EAGLE: Free version has limitations on size & licensing  Slow development: 2007-2016 & still in Beta 

Overview: Fritzing Pros and Cons  Pros  Allows you to think wiring through before mangling parts/wires  Breadboard/PCB view highlighting connection paths is a nice sanity-check  Intuitive interface  Intermediate / Advanced features usually easy to find  Cons  “Gotcha”: Documentation can be out of date.  Breadboard -> Schematic or Breadboard -> PCB is UGLY: Be prepared to do each view from scratch  Parts can be difficult to find; “rolling your own” is not fun  (Breadboard) Layout sometimes looks weird vs. “real world” 

Fritzing: The Real Estate Tour Photo Source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MYtNcESuAFo/UJmtP5iu12I/AAAAAAAAFR4/ogNbPyVVdg0/s1600/Real+Estate+1.jpeg 

Real Estate Tour: “Installing” Fritzing 1. Download .ZIP file from http://fritzing.org/download/ 2. Unzip file to convenient location on hard drive 3. (Recommended) Create OS-specific launcher for executable 4. (Optionally) Associate the (.FZZ) file type with the Fritzing executable 

Real Estate Tour: UI Overview “Breadboard” View Tab Breadboard Working Area (where the magic happens) Parts to drag and drop onto board Details of selected part Controls for position / orientation of part Zoom level control 

Real Estate Tour: Show Part Inspector 

Finding the Right Parts Photo Source: http://66.media.tumblr.com/cbfaef685eef53b3e8feaf674ddc72de/tumblr_n780sh8ndU1qz5q5lo1_1280.jpg 

Parts Bin(s): Organisation “Generic” parts Custom and/or imported parts Scroll up or down for other parts categories Search feature Vendor-specific parts 

Parts Bins: The “Gotchas”  Vendor-oriented bins are absolutely no help in either Icon View or List View  Some vendors (e.g. Adafruit, Seeed Studio) haven't contributed parts or only a (small) fraction of their catalogue  Be prepared to roll with “close enough” as long as the pinout is the same  Be prepared to search multiple terms – ranging from very specific to very vague  Creating your own (SVG) parts is an advanced move 

Demo: 8 LEDs With 3 Wires 

Demo: Circuit in Real Life 

Demo: Basic Steps 1. Choose appropriate breadboard 2. Locate (and optionally customise) parts 3. Arrange parts on breadboard 4. (Optionally) Label parts 5. Add necessary extra wiring 6. (Optionally) Export to .PNG, .JPEG, .SVG, or .PDF format 

Demo: Circuit in Fritzing Breadboard View 

Experimenting on Your Own Photo Source: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/quiz/571000/571868_1302369936696_315_395.jpg 

Fritzing: Resources  Fritzing website: http://www.fritzing.org/  New to electronics?  https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials  https://learn.adafruit.com  http://www.instructables.com/id/Basic­ Electronics  Camenzind, Hans, Much Ado About Almost Nothing: Man's Encounter with the Electron: www.indiebound.org/book/9780615139951  Shameless plug for the MPL Makerspace/FabLab: http://monctonpubliclibrary.ca/makerspace/ 

Et cetera  URL of slides (as .PDF file): http://www.bonaventuresoftware.ca/mug/Frit zing/slides.pdf  Email: [email protected]  Twitter: @bonaventuresoft