Since I’ve finished my flash trigger circuit, I’ve been trying to get the schematic in the computer so I can share it with others. Minor problem — the circuit capture software I’ve tried has been horrible. Rather than fighting with counterintuitive interfaces or editing text files to fill in support for integrated circuits I need, I decided to go with the tool I know best — Adobe Illustrator.
To that end, I’ve created a symbol library that contains the circuit elements I need — capacitors, resistors, transistors, and the like. Creating a schematic diagram in Adobe Illustrator is now as simple as dragging symbols and connecting them — no fancy illustration skills needed.
The Circuit Symbols library is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 license.
Click here to download Circuit Symbols for Adobe Illustrator.
Update: I’ve updated the symbols to fit better when using “Snap to Grid”. They’re optimized for a 0.5″ grid with 16 subdivisions.
19 Comments
thanks
Wow thanks a lot!!
Oh this is awesome! Thanks!
Thanks Matt, very useful!
You’re welcome!
Nice. Works a treat.
BTW on windows I’m getting two font not found errors when I load the library — doesn’t affect the symbols though.
Yeah, the + and Vcc labels were probably done in an unusual font, knowing me :)
Glad it works!
thank you very much
Hi. Thank you very much.
I tried SmartDraw and Visio, and they are just terrible.
You’re welcome! Hope it works well for you.
I have Illustrator 10 and your cs files are not showing up, can I impose and get a version saved for Illustrator 10?
thanks for a great add-on
Cheers,
David
Thanks a lot, these will be very useful
Excellent, this is what I’ve been looking for. Thanks!
You’re very welcome! Do let me know if you run into bugs or
limitations — I’ll do what I can to make sure you’re unblocked.
Cheers –
Matt
Thanks
very helpful, thanks. No inductors, though?
No, unfortunately no inductors — I made this symbol set for a project I was working on, and it didn’t occur to me to also add those. Sorry!
Hey, how did you get the symbols to conform to the grid like that? I’m using cs3 and I wish to add extra symbols to your library. However mine never align to grid once I add them as a symbol.
Is there somewhere you learnt to do this?
Regards,
Nick
Hi Nick,
Unfortunately no — it was just trial-and-error. If I remember right, I started with a document with 0.5″ grid, 16 subdivisions, then turned “snap to grid” on.
Then I drew symbols that lined up with the grid and made sure that if I duplicated the symbol, it stayed aligned. Nothing fancy.
Good luck! I’d be glad to link to your updated symbol palette if you post it somewhere.
Matt