Hello,
Peter has been very helpful in creating the JacDac components. I’d like to continue working on them and have a question.
Is it possible to add a cable as a component? The cable should have the following properties:
It is not flexible or bendable
It should automatically connect to the Calliope or a JacDac component when brought near the connector.
Currently, I have to connect it manually.
I would also like to add two more cables: one with a 90-degree bend and one with a 0-degree bend.
It is possible to do, I did it with a barrel jack and plug set a few years ago but never pursued it further (and currently can’t find the post.) It however has a lot of limitations, the cables are fixed (as they are parts.) to get them to connect you need to move them in a particular way (the other direction will not work!), the cables being of a fixed size means they won’t expand if you move a part. I didn’t pursue it mostly because it is by and large unpractical as it stands and there is no easy way (it would require code changes in Fritzing and they likely won’t be simple) to do it. You could do it by making a plug that connects to the jadac connector and comes to terminals that then connect to wires (which will move when parts are moved but the connector will not.) but I don’t think it will be worth the effort. Something like this should work:
you would need a plug at the opposite angle as well to connect to the Calliope and the blue wire would be 4 wires connecting the plugs together which will move with the parts. It still has a lot of limitations though but is doable. I left off the 4 connectors on the Calliope end here but they need to be there for this to work. The wires between the plugs are standard wires so you can curve them in Fritzing if you want.
O.K., thank you very much. I’m thinking about how best to proceed. It’s probably not worth the effort for this purpose. I want to use the breadboard view to give students instructions and create worksheets. For this, the connection doesn’t actually need to be functional. A purely visual representation would suffice.
Of course I will need to create the other cables, they only need to work in the breadboard view. That makes it easier.
But thank you very much for the quick help and the tip.
The only advantage to my option is the connections will reflect in to schematic correctly. If you only need breadboard another solution (editing the breadboard view exported as an svg to add the connectors would probably be my choice rather than trying to do something in Fritzing) is likely a better idea. Fritzing isn’t that flexible when it comes to things like this.
Inserting an image is really very easy. It is certainly better to insert an svg file here. But it should also work with a transparent png file. But it doesn’t look better as an svg file.
Inkscape is also a good way to solve the problem. I would create a symbol file for this. The JacDac_Symbols.svg file must then be copied into the folder:
From now on there is the symbol category JacDac_Symbols.
…by the way, the LEDs circled in red were automatically inserted with the Calliope. This is probably the cause of an earlier error. The LEDs were no longer present in the Calliope display…
