It sounds like you have data base corruption. That is usually caused by making a change in one view that conflicts with that in another view. One way to sometimes fix it is to delete all the connections and start again or just start a new sketch and complete on view then move to the next view and wire that according to the rats nest lines. I usually double click on the rats nest line to route it then drag it in to the correct postion before doing the next. Component placement matters (all the pins are numbered) but Fritzing will let you make connections that cause shorts across components and it can’t always recover from that when you delete the bad connection. If it gets bad enough (usually that takes interrupting a parts update though) you need to delete the user directories to clear it but I don’t think you are there yet. Try one or the other of these suggestions and see how it goes.

Peter

Peter,

Regarding

I deleted two ‘Transforms’. One resulted in No Problem the other did result in a problem. So, it would depend on what ‘transform’ needs deleting. But, the process of editing/deleted is simple (via an editor).

I’m posting a ‘Long-Winded’ write-up in a separate post. Should appear soon…

Screen Shot 2019-02-26 at 3.29.58 PM.png800x284 143 KB

I hoped to avoid repeating much of previous posts but, I’ve gotten long-winded… you may need a coffee break

Been using Fritzing for a couple of years and have made many PCB’s (mostly on my CNC mill but, some via Chemicals - usually as a demo to others on how to do it).

I’ve made a dozen parts for my Fritzing Parts bin - Parts that meet my preferences for ‘this & that’

I’ve gotten fairly proficient at using Inkscape but, I don’t like that App and always run into some issue.

I played with this for about a year (on once-in-awhile basis) and have posted a couple of parts/pcb/etc and this post is not about making Parts/PCB’s - it’s about the Drawing tools.

User experience/needs differ widely such that, this is about ‘Me’ and ‘My’ needs/preferences. If what I post/posted helps others, great.

Thus, I setup a baseline PCB and Part to work on and test with these App’s:
• Inkscape
• OpenOffice (Drawing)
• EZ Draw
• Gravit
• Boxy
• FreeCAD

Goal(s):
• To eliminate need to edit the XML
• Provides for Layers/ID naming
• Provides for re-arranging layers (order, sub-layers)
• Industry Consistent drawing tools (Fill, Units,…etc)
• A clean/useful user GUI
• That is uncluttered
• Does not require additional panels to do the job
• Retains Recent-File list and/or Tab’s
• Facilitates quick editing & tweaking
• Exports SVG’s that plays well with Fritzing for:
• PCB
• Loads the: Shape, Cutouts, Silkscreen
• Exports Gerbers properly
• Parts
• Editing / Creating from existing “Antenna” part
(I use that for my baseline part starting point as it is clean with minimal need to delete Connector/Pins… etc)
• Exports Gerber’s from Fritzing with details needed in CopperCam (for CNC/Gcode)
• Runs/plays well with Mac
• That will replace need for additional App’s
• Be useful to others (though, that’s last on my list)
• Avoids the issues with Open_Source and has responsive user forum, tutorials and manual

Summary:

The Bad -
With the exception of Gravit (will talk about that at end), all Apps required some fussing, work-arounds and XML editing.

The worst is FreeCAD - Excellent for CAD/other but not for SVG’s.

Next worse is Inkscape.

An improvement on the GUI is EZdraw. Has a layer panel but XML needs editing to delete the word “layer_” from the ID’s.

OpenOffice’s Drawing does great but, some XML edit may be needed depending on the PCB and/or Part.

Boxy is a useful App and has an XML edit Tab at window bottom. Some-learning is needed to understand how and what Tools to use to get the XML labels/ID’s correct. Otherwise it’s better than Inkscape.

The Good - actually, the best
Gravit Designer meets all and More than I expected. The current Release has one slight hiccup (not a Bug);
It includes some text in the XML that needs deleting for Fritzing Parts to work.
This is on their list of things to change. Thus, a quick edit to simply delete the text is needed. And, it’s temporary until next release (I hope)

So, I continue to ‘Praise’ Gravit with these few words:

• Nice Layer panel enabling Drag & Drop and Re-arranging/sub-layering
• A ’Symbols’ panel/feature
• Example of usage:
• Say you create a contact Pad for a 28 pin DIP
• Right-click, Make it Symbol
• Now, can Drag & Drop multiples from Symbol Panel/Tab
It’s like a Copy/Paste or Duplicate
• Various ways of Exporting

etc… etc… etc…

Concluding:

I’ve spent only an hour with Gravit but have discovered the usual things needed to know for accomplishing PCB/Parts - a few took a bit of head-scratching so, here are a couple of Tip’s for those interested in Gravit…

• Similar need-for-settings of things like Transparency, Stroke… etc (as done in Inkscape) are also needed but, syntax (what they’re called can be different)
• Example: “Stroke” in Inkscape is called “Borders” in Gravit (for things like rectangles). Size is in ‘px’ for drawings done in px and it’s in ’pt’ for drawings in other units (mm, inch…)
• Scaling can be done for Exported files or can simply set the Keep Ratio icon then multiply the Size value by 1.25 to make Fritzing happy. FYI 90dpi/72dpi = 1.25

Below is clipped-screenshot of Gravit - take note of the default GUI layout

• It took only a few moments to setup the Layers and connetcor pin’s. Take 10x longer in Inkscape!

There isn’t an Editor for the XML. For the temporary need to delete the previously mentioned Text or Other elements (such as Transform or others, if needed), I use BBedit.

BBedit and it’s Free version, TextWrangler are very useful:

How I use it:
• Create the Part and export the SVG. Open the SVG with BBedit/TextWrangler
• The text will not be formatted so, on Menubar:
Markup>Utilities>Format…
Set to Strict hierarchical
Click Format

• Now, for the short-term need to delete text:
Like in any other editor, Highlight the text to delete,
Search>Replace All

Bingo, save the file.

Leaving BBedit/Wrangler open to the file just edited will allow it’s updating to a newly exported revised file.
It will show up as un-formatted so, simply repeat the format and delete/edit…

Also, BBedit/Wrangler has a ‘Preview’ window to see the graphic!

Screenshots below: Clipped-view Gravit GUI and XML in BBEdit

Screen Shot 2019-02-26 at 2.28.36 PM.jpg1200x1518 695 KB

Screen Shot 2019-02-26 at 3.27.18 PM.jpg1200x861 589 KB

Looks like a bug in the BB part.
Grab a resistor and lay it on the BB across the 2 black wires that are inserted in the BB and it clears. Also if you move the top black wire 1 position left, so it’s not completing the circuit, it also clears.

Peter
Thanks,
I have tried but it result was same.
I tried to delete all connections and start again one of view, then next view connect according to the rats nest lines. and just new sketch too.

Old_Grey
Thanks,
I did, and Breadboard view’s status bar saying “Routing completed”.
What do you think we can do to help reduce this problem ?

Sketch(2).fzz (4.0 KB)

My apologies, I was looking at the wrong sketch last night. Indeed your sketch breaks for me as well. It appears to relate to the bendable legs on the led and is likely a bug. While the wire to the cathode of the led says it is connected, for purposes of routing that isn’t correct. If I delete the black wire and connect the cathode of the led directly to the breadboard it appears to work correctly. As does having a second led connected directly to the breadboard like this. Moving the second led up so its cathode doesn’t connect causes the routing error. Yet the rats nest in schematic is showing as correct and will complete routing even when breadboard will not

Sketch_fixed .fzz (3.7 KB)

This sketch is the working version, If you drag the right hand led up so it isn’t connected to the breadboard you will get the 1 more net to route message. A fix is to connect everything to the breadboard that appears to work correctly.

Peter

Hi, i have a problem, when open the option FIle/Open, the fritzing is closed

First which operating system are you using and which version of Fritzing (hopefull 0.9.3b which is the latest). So you start Frtizing and it stays up? Then you try file->open and Fritzing dies? Do you get the browse file box and asked to pick a file name or it dies when you click file->open?
One thing to try (which may or may not help) is start a debug log. Start Fritzing click help->enable debugging log. That should open a window and may give information when Fritzing crashes. You might also try deleting the user files in case you have corruption which is usually caused by interrupting Fritzing when it appears to hang at first startup. It is in fact not hung but doing (silently) a parts update from github, so after clearing the directories wait for the parts update to complete on first restart (it should eventually ask you if you want to update the parts).

There are two user directories (with your parts and the parts database) which don’t get touched during an install (to not affect your sketchs during upgrades). On Windows they are in

c:\users\username\AppData\Fritzing\roaming\Fritzing (which is a hidden directory so you need to enable hidden directories in explorer) and

c:\Users\username\My Documents\Fritzing (where username is your windows id)

If you don’t have any parts or sketches you want to keep you can just delete those two directories and Fritzing will receate them, or you can move them aside by renaming them if you wan to keep something in them.

linux

~/Documents/Fritzing/parts
~/.config/Fritzing

Peter

I had checked the LED, and it seamed ok.

I found a part without bendable legs, and it still shows 1 unrouted. Then I move the wire 1 across, and it’s now routed. Kind-of still looks like the BB.
Sketch2 .fzz (11.7 KB)

EDIT - Looks like any part that is floating and connected with a wire to a BB goes crazy. Looks like a combination of things break FZ.

Hi Peter, first off thanks again!

Ok, I think I understand what you mean, but have a couple “quick” questions. Are the Capacitors backward…“Cap_1” is connected to the Output of the Voltage Regulator which would be the 5v and “Cap_2” is connected to Input of the Regulator, which would be 12V, right?

It looks like you connected the Barrel Jack ground directly to the Voltage Regulator, and then “Cap_2” to the GND of the Micro (Photon), I’m assuming that is what you mean by keeping the logic ground and filter Cap separate, right? The GND from the Micro (Photon) shouldn’t still be connected to the Barrel Jack GND though right, since that is 12V…? I took your changes and flipped the Voltage regulator. If you get a chance could you take a look let me know what you think? The only thing I’m unsure about is “Cap_2” which is the 5V side and that it’s no longer connected to the voltage regulator ground.

Wow, this is more complicated than I thought it would be! haha

MP6500_Flipped_Reg_And_Cap.fzz (49.9 KB)

Peter
I did that too (it appears to work correctly) .
Furthermore,
for example, different parts( three bendable legs type) shows looks like similar problem too.

Untitled Sketch 2-3.fzz (4.7 KB)

In this case, also, do you think how to fix is to connect everything to the breadboard ?
(Should I make to connect sensor to breadboard directly in the BB view? )

Old_Grey
I think so too.
umm…
Could it be (in the similar way?) we need to connect everything to the breadboard …?

Sketch2-2.fzz (11.4 KB)

Don’t know. I could swear this used to work, but I don’t know that I ever tried a component not on the breadboard. I don’t see why it won’t work as a connector is a connector but it doesn’t . There must be some reasonable explanation that we are missing here. It works if the part is on the breadboard, but I don’t see the difference right now.

Peter

I tried every BB, and a floating part with a wire through a BB shows routing errors. So long as 1 leg is in the BB, it’s fine.

It must just be that combination that breaks FZ, because if it is bendable legs its too hard to fix because nearly every part in the CORE bin is bendable.

It is entirely possible I got the capacitors backwards :-), but it is not quite right yet, at present you don’t have a logic ground.

Capture.PNG940x619 150 KB

In this ugly picture the logic ground is in drunken blue. The ground pin of the barrel connector is the system common ground (with a blue sort of circle around it). The high current path to the motor is in the red circle. The issue we are trying to solve is that at the red pin of the motor driver board (referred to the blue circled barrel jack ground) up to a few hundred millivolts of difference due to the resistance of the traces and the typically large current draw of motors may occur. The logic ground path (from the same initial ground point) is drawing almost no current and won’t have any voltage drop, meaning that the logic levels when low will really be low, not approaching (or exceeding) the low logic threshold which is typically 0.7 volts. The motor doesn’t care about a voltage drop in its ground lead, the logic does. I also boosted the trace size on all the grounds just because you have the space and bigger is better. I also came straight out of the pins to get maximum separation and moved the ground for the voltage regulator on to the logic ground path rather than the motor path. It to won’t be drawing that much current. Essentially the blue circled pins on the motor driver may be up to a couple of hundred millivolts lower than the red circled pin on the motor driver depending on how much current the motor draws. With this configuration that doesn’t matter.

MP6500_Flipped_Reg_And_Cap1.fzz (49.5 KB)

both your original board pass drc (in pcb view routing->design rules check) so clearance probably wasn’t an issue anyway but more clearance is better. As well this is something you don’t want to do:

grnd_loop.PNG592x618 75.5 KB

the two parallel connections in ground can cause voltage differential due to different path resistance which can cause problems. Any point in the ground system should have only one connection to any other point in the ground system to avoid that.

Peter

If we can get development going again we can at least try and fix it (with a lot of other bugs). I’m making progress, I have dev environments running on Wi7 64 and 32 now and am working on Win10 (I don’t expect any problems there) and then I need to write it up so other people can do it as well.

Peter

I noticed on the mega, that there is a alternative SCL & SDA pins near the AHREF pin. However with all versions of mega in fritzing they do not have copper through holes. Ive tried adding them with a simple 1 hole header but this doesn’t work due to the grid alignment system within fritzing it is not possible to make them aligned. I tried to mess with parts editor but was unable to figure out how to do this…

fritzing.jpg717x604 35.6 KB

You can get a via and make it the same size as the MEGA pads and place it on the last copper pad with Inspector X/Y cords, and then just subtract 0.100" from the X twice.

EDIT - You grabbed the wrong MEGA. Use the MEGA2560 not the ADK

Okay I switched it to the other one and you are right it does show up, but now all the silk screen labels are gone on that mega, do you have an idea how to get the silk screen labels to appear again for that mega?

Bonjour , je suis français , j’ai 61 ans ! et pas du tout électronicien ! je suis musicien et je travaille avec des interfaces midi connecté à des instrument acoustiques via des capteurs à effet hall.

Voici ma demande . Je voudrais de l’aide pour concevoir 2 circuits imprimés identiques au niveau de la conception portant l’ensemble des composants nécessaires pour assurer la transmission des messages midi jusqu’à une carte arduino 2560 mega. La carte arduino a été programmée par tom scarff un irlandais et spécialement pour mon accordéon . Je dispose du schéma de principe des 2 rampes de contacts , Je vous joins des photos du schéma électronique réalisé par tom scarff. Il y a des contraintes de place dans l’accordéon et il faudrait au maximum réduire les fils et donc le câblage avec peut être une modif au niveau de l’ide de la carte arduino ? Les capteurs à effets halls doivent être logés sur un circuit imprimé dont la longueur ne pourra pas excédé 31 cm de long . Impérativement je dois pouvoir fixer mon circuit imprimé dans un emplacement de 34/35 cm de long et si possible de largeur inférieure ou égale à 3 cm J’ ai cependant 49 capteurs IN 3144 pour chaque main donc au pas de 2.54 c’est pas bon il faut faire quelques aménagement lors des soudures voir sur le circuit imprimé , Chaque capteur enverra les informations numériques correspondant à chaque note de chaque main de l’accordéon via un aimant collé sur la tige correspondante; Je réaliserai la soudure de chaque capteur ainsi que l’ensemble du montage du système système . Je veux bien sûr votre aide pour concevoir le circuit imprimé , j’ai déjà fait un circuit pour la main gauche mais il y a beaucoup de strap ! c’est de la bidouille . je vais vous joindre une photo .
Bon voilà dans un premier temps . J’espère que vous pourrez m’aider pour ce projet qui me tiens à coeur , je sors tout juste d’une très grave maladie et la musique est mon vrai moteur alors merci à vous . !!!:souriant::souriant::souriant:

mega2560_midi_OUT_only|535x500

midi_harmoneon_LH_RH_switches|597x500

It’s too hard for a beginner to get the labels back because they are hidden in the svg.

Try my via moved by coordinates in Inspector for the ADK, or hover over the pad and it will tell you what the pin is, or maybe this part - Arduino Mega 2560 (Rev3) std with silkscreen