I am making my way through the excellent “Arduino Workshop” book and I am documenting all of the projects I put together in Fritzing.
I’m onto Project 5 which is all about controlling simulated traffic lights.
I have put together the breadboard and schematic in Fritzing, but if I get the breadboard looking right then the schematic goes slightly awry, with some routing issues. Conversely, if I get the schematic looking right then the breadboard goes slightly awry.
I have attached my Fritzing file - it’s currently in a situation where I am happy with the schematic, but the capacitors on the breadboard view now have lost their routing.
The capacitors are there simply to eradicate any switch “bounce” from the pushbuttons.
I have no doubt that I am doing something dumb and noob-like but if anyone can point me in the right direction then I would be extremely grateful.
For beginners you generally you only work in one view until it’s perfect, and then trust the ratsnests in the other views. For advanced you can work in any view because you can see in your head what will happen in other views. Also sometimes FZ will default to what was last connected, so check all views to see that they follow suit. The biggest mistake I see is that people don’t realise parts have numbered ends, so they force connections in other views and not follow the ratsnests.
The caps can be fixed by seating them one row lower, but if you aren’t sure you usually move parts a distance away so it stretches the rats so you can see where they should be connected. Basically FZ will unseat parts in other views making you reseat them, and this is a quick way to show you what is effected.
You haven’t fallen prey to any of the usual errors: making changes in more than one view can corrupt the routing data base is one doing all your changes in one view before moving on to connect the others is the best practice to avoid this. Getting the orientation of components different in different views is another that also causes routing problems, but you seem to have done fine. In this case the routing change has caused a disconnect in the other view’s routing. All you need to do is click on each capacitor in turn in breadboard and move it up one slot and then back to where it was. The change alerts Fritzing that it should check and correct the routing. On the move back the connection goes green as the change registers and the rats nest line disappears.
@Old_Grey and @vanepp Thank you both so much for the advice and responses. I love the fact that people on these forums are so much more helpful and friendly than a lot of the forums I used to frequent.
Much appreciated ! +++