I actually think with this circuit the cross connections with dots it is much easier to comprehend. If I had to do this I would but a dotted line around that area with a note. Crossed lines are connections in this area only.
I’ve had long discussions with other engineers (or standards guys) about writing notes. I think notes are very useful (powerful) and I’ll put any note I think helps understand the design. Whether electrical or mechanical.
not gonna lie, that is awful and the proof is at the bank of capacitors at the top. The sear lack of clarity about what a connection is or what a jump over is means that where the top bank crosses the 2nd row of cap’s it is ambiguous as to the intent. The entire point of the written word or visual representation is to convey concise information, what we have here is a failure of ontology where the meeting of lines means either a connection or a crossing and this surely cannot be advocated by anyone.
Any eCAD software that did this would immediately be on my no-go list and I would ensure I vocally advocated against its usage if anyone was to ask me their recommendation.
This single handily advocates why dots (or hops) are important
And, having been a paid proffesional in the US Military and US Defence Departments, I completely dissagree with the link you provided.
I can read either schematic equally as easy. Some people need to “re-draw” the schematic so they can see it in their mind. I’ve read so many crappy schematics that I just don’t care any more; so long as there are no silly superfluous junction dots.
You can have all the dots you want, as big as you want them. Why do you feel the need to force them on me?
Because the lack of presents ambiguity and the entire point of an ontology is to be concise in the intent. There are reasons tools that do not use such visual conciseness are becoming fewer.
Why do you feel the need to force ambiguity onto designers, especially novices
Uhmmm WHAT?
It is your opinion that the dots are needed by everyone, because you need them.
It appears that the US Military does not share your opinion. Also, I don’t need them, nor want them.
It is also my opinion that teaching bad habits early on, just because it might be a little bit easier at first, is in general not good practice.
Things evolve. Currently one has to consider how high a regard to hold the US Military in military matters, let alone electrical schematic matters. SNAFU isn’t exactly a new term in the military. Sorry, repeated US Military usage doesn’t win the day and I’m born and bred in the US of A.
I might have (or saw) some old US military schematics from the early 20’s that had dots and hoops. From a Defense Contractor point of view, the standard to remove these was implemented by Lockheed at least some time before 1940; as I had some of the drawings that my grandfather took home.
With a paper schematic in hand and a flashlight in my teeth, I would have been nothing but irritated by the useless junction dots on the drawing. Everyone here advocating junction dots while using a viewing display that is lit up, and not prone to blowing away fom the wind, has no idea why they are a bad idea in the field on a sheet of stained cellulose.
Just because I have not posted my expert opinion on a dedicated internet page does not mean that my opinion is wrong; I mean, because if an opinoin is formally on the internet it must be true?
This seems to be the indentation style debate of the ECAD world. I myself am a proponent of the One True Junction Style (OTJS) with junction dots, no four way junctions, and off course no jump over loops. But to debate what is best seems pointless since it involves so much of personal taste.
Junction dots are supported both ways, so no need to discuss that. Regarding cross over loops, the question is if it is worth the effort to implement them. I imagine few experienced engineers want them, but I do know that they exist. I think that it is better to ignore such requests and make it a bit harder for this practice to spread.
Was there a ‘standard’ that Lockeed followed or are you saying they made it standard? You imply they removed them because you saw a schematic without them? Maybe they never used them.
But, given the drafting techniques of the time, I could imagine this was as much about efficiency. Cross overs would have been quite cumbersome to do manually. Even junction dots would take time, not to mention consistency. This was a time of manual drafting when fountain pens would have made plenty of accidental dots and pencils were prone to smudging.
If I were doing a simple schematic for non-technical people I could see where they would be useful.
That is actually a good point!
Nope.
Don’t start teaching bad / non-standard conventions to beginners. That is why (non-)issues like this keep on generating long threads.
Just tell them once that crossing wires do not connect unless there is a dot on it. This simply is the standard that all PCB programs follow.
I’m not talking about teaching people schematics. I’m talking communicating with lay folk. But, to each their own.
I don’t agree. A schematic is full of symbols that would be foreign to a non-Technical group. If that group were to really need to understand the schematic they could easily absorb the no cross connections concept. The “T” connections are obvious.
The way I see it there’s 2 things here: (1) what the program wants - which we can ignore for the moment; and (2) making the drawing 100% CLEAR to humans, so there are NO doubts what is meant.
Yes, in days of old, I used to use “omegas” for crossovers, and what a PITA they were to draw neatly. A hand-drawn dot is maybe also not neat, but if the rule is “if it’s a blob then it’s a connection” is a pretty safe rule.
And, of course, badly drawn “omega” for a crossover starts to look like a dot / blob - oops!
I remember the changes to the way windows worked, back in 3.1, then 95… annoying changes, but we accept the changes for what they are, like them or not. Kicad wants a dot to be sure there’s a connection, so just accept that, and move on… either move on and use Kicad, or move on to another CAD program.
I don’t care about the hop-over symbols. I won’t use them. However, I do like the ability to have either dots or no-dots for wire junctions. Please keep them as is! Thanks.
Hello!
People who don’t share your opinion are not necessarily silly.
I like the silly dots because I consider them as an acknowledge from the software, like
“I got it, these to wires are connected”. It happened to me in he past that 2 wires were
very close, but not connected. It wasn’t Kicad.
So basically I voted “I don’t care”, i.e. I will not use hop over, but I don’t care if some people
want to use it, that’s their business.
Beside this, I suppose that the same schematic would be displayed with dots in my
configuration, and with hop over in case another person uses them, so what’s the problem?
Hi, @roboya
@Sprigs reference is to the dots being silly, not the people using them.
Personally, I don’t care one way or another about junction dots on three way junctions, however I do use them.
I absolutely abhor four way junctions with dots covering the crime and have never liked or used hop-overs or duck-unders.
In 5.99, File>Schematic Setup
But the setting seems to do nothing. (I did try F3 - refresh) What am I supposed to do if I want connection dots that are invisibly small or large enough to obliterate the entire schematic?
Application: KiCad Schematic Editor (64-bit)
Version: (5.99.0-12088-gff9612b6da), release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.1.5
libcurl/7.74.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.11
Platform: Windows 10 (build 19043), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
Date: Aug 26 2021 20:58:53
wxWidgets: 3.1.5 (wchar_t,STL containers)
Boost: 1.76.0
OCC: 7.5.0
Curl: 7.74.0-DEV
ngspice: 34
Compiler: Visual C++ 1928 without C++ ABI
Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON
