Hi there, I’m brand new to KiCAD and schematics and was wondering if someone could help me with my first one. I need to connect to several digital pins and ground, and was wondering if I could wire over the digital ones to wire to ground as I have done in the photo below. Let me know and if I can’t, do you know how I can fix this?
Sure.
Crossing lines are no problem. They’re only connected if the dot is there.
Sure you can - connections only happen between wires when there is a connection dot but your schematic will get a bit messy without some planning.
The schematic is an abstraction of the circuit - the pins don’t need to be in exactly the same positions as on the actual device. There are also some conventions - generally the supply voltage rail at the top and GND at the bottom. Remember that power components eg GND are ‘global labels’ - so wherever they are placed they are connected so you can simply use a couple of GND symbols and don’t need to run wires between them.
I would firstly consider editing the ‘nano bluno ‘ symbol to have the GND pins (4 and 17) at the bottom and Vcc at the top. I would also line up the inflexion points. You can then run the GND connection down the entire left side. You might even consider rotating the left hand components so the GND can run down the far LHS and the signals connect to the controller on the right.
You can also use labels to simplify the connections although too many labels can make a schematic harder to follow.
If you are curious, see this related topic. More than anyone wants to read IMHO
Like John_Pateman says, GND is a global label. Your schematic will become 90% neater simply by connecting all the pin 2’s of your connectors with a short wire to GND symbols, all pointing down of course.
PS: This is obsessive of me but I would also flip the connectors vertically so that pin 2 is below pin 1. Firstly it orders the pins 1, 2. Secondly it reinforces that pin 2, being connected to GND, is at a lower potential than pin 1.
Don’t you ever put something into a grinder and grind it up?
I would also add some space between J? connectors to place there the J? and OSTTA020161 texts, or move that texts to left.
Regarding the general approach to schematic I would use bus and labels. If later during PCB designing you will find that it would be better to use another U? pin for some task you will need only to move labels at schematic and not to rearrange wires.
Here is the part of one of my schematics:
Thank you for your help, I’ll start working on those changes
Yes, but there is something wrong with pins of J?. Small circle should be on their opposite end - like you have at U?.
Pin 1 needs to be rotated 180 degrees and probably repositioned. Pin 2 looks OK.
If that’s a short wire, I wonder what you consider a long wire. You can move the GND symbol much closer to the connector. Also there’s something wrong with pin 1 as others say. Did you make this symbol yourself? There are standard connector symbols in the library you know, you can change the value to that long product name of yours.
PS: In case you are not aware, you can bring the GND right up to the pin if you wish without a wire and it will connect; it’s not like a breadboard where you need a wire. Also if the orientation for a symbol is wrong you don’t have to go back to the symbol editor, you can mirror and rotate in all combinations for the best fit to your schematic.
No.
Don’t you see its color? Don’t you see where its name is written?
Also, the wire is being paced over the the pin 2. Which means it is being connected to the wrong end, considering the symbol.
Oh God, those hop over mess the whole schematic. It gets busy pretty quick. I hope no one change this.
Don’t worry about it. This was just an FYI; interest. I have seen hopovers in Altium but I think that is an unusual holdover from the days of schematic diagrams drawn with pencil and paper. I don’t think anyone needs to draw that way.
I actually use a lot of labels but this hop over is so 80’s. We definitely learned how to read schematics and how the junction dot works. Junction is good for the simplicity. The less busier schematic is, easier to understand it.
Now, for the one starting this thread. You can always do the test yourself. You can import the design in the layout editor to check if the pins are connected or not.
Thats something I always wasnt sure about. Is it bad style to connect symbols without any length of wire / does KiCad need wires ?
Kicad doesn’t need wires but you do lose the advantage of seeing these connections when you select net highlighting. It can be tempting in a tight schematic to do this but I would generally chose to lay things out over more or larger sheets than ram things together without interconnecting wire segments.
thats true. But at least if I drag one of the components KiCad acts intelligent and adds the “missing” wire automatically.