Alternative symbols for easy rotation

On 18.11.2015 15:41, Rachael wrote:

When placing a common library part such as a resistor or capacitor it's

often necessary to rotate it to fit in with how you are drawing a certain

part of your schematic. For any one device, library symbols can currently

only be drawn in a single rotational position so when you then rotate the

part your text is now no longer how you would like it and you are required

to smash the device and manually replace all the text in the right

positions and orientations. This is okay for a handful of components but

not good for a large design. It's fine for a hobbyist just throwing

together small projects for their own use but as a professional design

engineer, when I present clients with schematics I have drawn they need to

look professional and this is causing additional work to achieve this.

 

It would be nice if several versions of a symbol (up to 4) could be

provided which would automatically be cycled through upon rotate if they

were available. This would mean we could create nice sets of symbols in our

libraries and rotate away to our hearts content safe in the knowledge that

we wouldn't be building up a mountain of smash and reposition work down the

line.

 

A quick fix I tried for this was to have -H and -V variants of resistors,

capacitors etc but this just became a pain in the BOM! (pun intended!)

Is vertical reading really that difficult? All my schematics are a mix

of H and V and nobody I met ever had problems interpreting that.

On 18.11.2015 15:41, Rachael wrote:

When placing a common library part such as a resistor or capacitor it's

often necessary to rotate it to fit in with how you are drawing a certain

part of your schematic. For any one device, library symbols can currently

only be drawn in a single rotational position so when you then rotate the

part your text is now no longer how you would like it and you are required

to smash the device and manually replace all the text in the right

positions and orientations. This is okay for a handful of components but

not good for a large design. It's fine for a hobbyist just throwing

together small projects for their own use but as a professional design

engineer, when I present clients with schematics I have drawn they need to

look professional and this is causing additional work to achieve this.

 

It would be nice if several versions of a symbol (up to 4) could be

provided which would automatically be cycled through upon rotate if they

were available. This would mean we could create nice sets of symbols in our

libraries and rotate away to our hearts content safe in the knowledge that

we wouldn't be building up a mountain of smash and reposition work down the

line.

 

A quick fix I tried for this was to have -H and -V variants of resistors,

capacitors etc but this just became a pain in the BOM! (pun intended!)

Is vertical reading really that difficult? All my schematics are a mix

of H and V and nobody I met ever had problems interpreting that.

Morten Leikvoll wrote on Thu, 19 November 2015 06:00

Is vertical reading really that difficult?

It may not be stictly speaking all that "difficult", but that's not the

point.  It is certainly annoying and very unprofessional.  Every time you

decrease clarity and annoy those who have to read the schematic, you

increase the chance of someone misinterpreting it.  Even one such case out

in the field can be more expensive than to have drawn the schematic

properly in the first place.

Quote:

All my schematics are a mix of H and V and nobody I met ever had

problems interpreting that.

Being correct is only a necessary but not sufficient requirement for a good

schematic.  It's not about whether in the end someone was able to correctly

interpret your schematic, but how easily, with little chance of error, and

without the feeling the designer just threw slop at them.  Don't

underestimate the latter.

Neatness counts, A LOT.  Your production tech, field tech, or customer,

might not complain, but what attitude did they have when dealing with your

schematics?  Maybe they weren't even aware of it, but the "eh, who cares"

attitude exhibited by your schematic probably caused a little of the same

in them.  Eh, that solder joint is probably good, I'm not going to bother

to check with the jewler's loupe like I usually do. Eh, that cap fell on

the floor where I might have stepped on it, it's probably not cracked, good

enough, not worth my getting out of this chair to get a new one.  And so on

it goes.

When you give someone sloppy work, you set the tone and give them

permission to do the same.  Or, if you're working for them, they may decide

they like the other engineer's work better, even if they aren't even

concious of why.

I can tell you for sure that if you worked for me, you'd be making all your

text horizontal.  And if I actually had to say something to you to make

that happen, I probably wouldn't tell you this, but your lack of

professional pride in your work would be something in the back of my mind

when deciding who to assign to what task.

--

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No it's not difficult and it's not a question if not being able to

interpret them, but I have dealt with large companies who have very strict

style guides for schematics though and this sort of thing becomes an issue.

If it's not a problem for you then fine, for me this is something I would

find useful.

It's only a suggestion, hence it's in the eagle.suggest forum, so if you

don't like it feel free to ignore it. I'm pretty sure the devs will only

implement things that enough people have asked for to make it worth their

while anyway so if it's just me that thinks this would be useful then I'm

sure they won't waste their time implementing it.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.