Overview of TinyCAD’s features

 

Currently selected tool dialogue

 
 

 

 

 

 


Drawing area, multiple windows

 

Symbol selection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The blue lines are wires.

 

They “snap” automatically to symbols and other wires - making it possible to draw without the grid.

 

Junctions can be placed automatically for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drawing a Design

Designs are created from in-built objects such as wires, junctions, etc., and from imported component symbols, such as diodes, transistors, etc.

To place symbols in to your design:

1.      Use the Symbol picker on the left of the screen to browse and select the symbols that you need for your design. 

2.      If you don't know the name of the symbol you want then you can use the search facility on the dialogue. Enter a word describing the component. As you do so the list of components will be reduced to include just those that contain the text in either their name or description.  If the symbol isn’t present, then you will have to create a new one – this is described in the section on libraries.

3.      Place the symbols on the design, by selecting them as the current tool.  Do this by either double clicking on the name, selecting the “Get” button on the symbol picker or click on the preview of the symbol.

4.      You place the symbol by clicking the location of where you wish to place the symbol.  You can rotate the symbol by using the tool dialogue that normally sits at the top right of the drawing area.  Select “Up”, “Down”, “Left” or “Right” to orientate the symbol.

5.      Once you have finished placing symbols of that type, right click with the mouse to end.

TIP:  You can move a symbol’s text fields around.  First select the symbol for editing, and then you can drag any of the symbol’s fields with the mouse to a new position on the drawing.

At any one time a certain number of symbol libraries are in use. The libraries to be searched are listed in the libraries option of the Library Menu. Before you can start using symbols at least one symbol library must be listed here. (See the Library Menu, in the menu reference for more help on adding a library to this list).

To wire up your design:

1.      Use the wire tool, which is the blue line on the toolbar.

2.      Move the mouse over the start point of your wire, a small red circle will highlight any active points on a symbol or another wire that it is suitable to start wiring from.

3.      Every time you click with the left hand mouse button you will place a corner in your wire.

4.      Continue drawing the wire.  To end, select another active point (which is shown with the red circle).

5.      Notice how the wire tool is magnetic towards symbols’ pins and other wires.

6.      When you place a wire connecting to another wire a junction is placed for you automatically.

TIP: It is a common mistake to use polygon lines instead of wires to wire up components.  This should be avoided because TinyCAD will not be able to use the special features for you.  Wires automatically snap to symbols, and without wires you cannot export your circuit to a PCB design program.

 

 

Editing your drawing

Once a symbol has been placed you may want to change its properties. The edit tool in the drawing toolbar is use for editing already placed objects.  Normally you don’t have to select the edit tool as it is the default tool after you have finished with a different tool.  To select it manually click on the white mouse arrow toolbar button.

Whilst drawing an object you may wish to move to another area of the design, so that you can move the object to a part of the design not currently shown. Do this by dragging with the middle mouse button (normally the scrollwheel) to pan the drawing, or use the scroll-bars.  You can also use the scrollwheel to zoom in and out on your drawing.

Use the edit tool in the normal Windows' way – click on objects to select them, or select multiple objects using the Ctrl-key or dragging out an area. If you have just one item selected then its options dialogue will be shown to let you change the options of that object.

You can move objects in the normal Windows' way, which is to select the objects and then drag them. By default the connected wires come too, however, if you wish to unhook a symbol from its wires then drag with the Ctrl-key held down.

To delete selected objects use the delete option on the drawing toolbar (a red cross) or use the delete key. The normal cut, copy and paste options are also available to you. You can access these from the edit menu or use the right-mouse button to bring up the context menu.

If you prefer you don't have to use the new Windows' editing features of TinyCAD, still available to you are the block move, block drag, and duplicate block tools. These can be found in the block toolbar.

If you wish to rotate part of a design (by 90 degrees), then you have to use the block rotate object in the block toolbar. Outline the area you wish to rotate and then use the tool buttons to rotate the selected area.

There is a full undo/redo buffer built into TinyCAD.  If you make a mistake you can undo your changes with the “Undo” command in the Edit menu.

Whilst you are editing your drawing it is saved automatically for you so you don’t lose any work should TinyCAD crash.  The default for Autosave is to save your drawing every 10 minutes. The backup drawing is saved in the same directory as the original but with an “.autosave” extension.

 

 

Symbol Attributes

Each symbol has at least two text attributes associated with it.


The Name attribute

This is the name or type of the component that the symbol represents. If the component has a value then insert the value here. For example, if it were a resistor then the name might be 330R or 4k7. If the symbol represents a phono connector then the name might be Phono.

The Reference attribute

This is an identifier that is unique to the whole design, typical values might be R1 or Q3 etc. There may be many resistors each with a Name field of 330R, however, each resistor must have a unique Reference. There should only be one symbol with reference R1 in a design.

This field can normally be left as it is, you can use the Special tools to set the references automatically. Either use the reference painter to “paint” each reference or use the add symbol references automatically.

The Package attribute

This is the attribute is used for PCB netlist export. The PCB layout program will use this attribute to determine which pad layout to use. There is no fixed naming convention for this attribute and it is entirely dependent on the footprint libraries supplied with your PCB layout program.

Not all symbols have the package attribute by default. You must add it if you wish to export to a PCB program. To add it, simply click on the “Add” button, and then rename the new attribute to Package.

Other attributes

You may add additional attributes to a symbol from the symbol's tool dialogue. There is no real limit to the number of attributes you add. You may use these references for almost any purpose, for example you may wish to add PCB layout instructions here.

All of the the symbols in the supplied libraries have an “other” attribute already defined for you. However, you can add more if you wish. Either add them by default by editing the symbol in the library or add them individually to each symbol at placement time.

 

Automatic Junction placement

Junctions are placed automatically for you, so normally you don't need to use the junction tool.

Where two wires cross they are not considered joined unless a junction is used at the crossing point. Junctions are also required when a pin is connected to the middle of a wire.

If you wish to place junctions manually, then switch automatic junction placement off, in the Options->Settings dialogue, and then the junction tool will be available to you.

Whilst automatic junction placement is on, you cannot select junctions.