Hi I am new to Fritzing. I was come to Fritzing via Arduino schematics pictures. I think, that it can be very usefull to document any real world wiring eg. connecting some parts with wires. It is very hard to find some description for what purpouse is the software realy designed for. What i did not find is a wire that can represent real wire (or multi-wire) as a part of design. I think that, this can add a new dimension of the software which give the posibility to create intuitive schematics how to connect multiple things together via connectors and wires - it means multiple separate boards or units or nut-connectors. Most of this type sketches will contain a “new” board which is designed to enable connection of the surrounding parts. It can be archived by adding some flags to parts and wires that enable to distinguish between real wire and wired connection and etc.
Fritzing already does “real” wires, although not directly handle wire bundles or wiring harness. If “real” wires are created (by the user) between connectors in one view (breadboard, schematic, pcb), a ratsnest line (virtual or tentative) wire is created in the other views as a suggestion. That can be turned into a real wire by double clicking on it, or dragging the center to create a bend to start the process of routing the wire in that view.
Either I am not understanding the meanings of the terms being used, or Fritzing already does it, and you are not familiar enough yet with the application capabilities.
Originally Fritzing was a research project aimed at educating children about electonic design. Thus the breadboard view which is unique to Fritzing. It is also a simpler (compared to the other EDA programs) way to make less complex pcbs (although it has been used to make some quite complex pcbs, it has a number of limitations.)
As @microMerlin pointed out, a wire can be created by connecting two pins. I expect an example sketch (the .fzz file) of what you want to connect would be a good start for one of us to tell you how Fritzing can or can not be used to do what you want.
Peter
Here is an example: Interconnection of 1. CNC machine, 2. new customer controller, 3. Plasma Source with CNC I/O. CNC machine controller I/O board has screw terminals. I added industrial grade connector on controller case for some of the signal pins (e.g. here i need document wiring between i/o board screw terminals and connector). Similiar type of connector will be on new customer controller - connected to the board thru some flat cable. Then i want create “cable” which will be between these two units (1 and 2). Similiar connection will be between units 2 and 3. I see lot of the sketches over time and think that it can be posible to use Fritzing for that. But i is not or it is so much complicated.
This would require that someone create Fritzing parts for a CNC machine, controller, Plasma source (I have no idea what a plasma source is though) and possibly the connectors if they don’t already exist. Unfortunately making Fritzing parts is quite complex (it took me around a year of effort to get competent at it.) So it is likely possible to do what you want but is going to take a lot of work. For things of general interest, for example the recent Raspberry PI Pico part, one of us here will sometimes make a part. The problem here is this is likely to be a lot of work to do for limited use (the parts are too specific to be of general use.) There are tutorials on making Fritzing parts available in the tutorials guides and howtos section of this forum and we are happy to assist people in making their own parts if you would care to try.
Peter
Yes. I got it. I have created connectors, CNC machine I/O board with screw terminals, and etc. But when i start making connections and sometimes view a schema tab i will be disapointed. Schema autoconnect some pins of parts direct even when they are connected via 2 or more wires in series. I know that these connection are correct. But they does not reflect the cabling scheme from breadboard view and i think they sometimes may in scheme introduce a missing connection where it should be (in first unit) -and let it realize via “external” connection (inside second unit). This is comming from thinking about all wires and corresponding pins connected together as they all are on one board only and not on two (or more) connected trought a wire.
If you upload the sketch (the .fzz file, upload is 7th icon from the left in the reply menu) I will have a look at it and see if I can see what is wrong. Your custom parts will be included as part of the sketch.
Peter
Creating a part for me was not problem. After few experiments it was done. I found small problem: when you save a part you must also save the bin or it will be lost. I think that an autosave option of bin after adding any part to it will satisfy most users. One missing think is the ability to easy (without graphic editor and etc) define an external inteface - a virtual part with pins only, not intended to place on board, with a autogenerated “simple” aka IC schema for all types of view (breadboard, scheme, DPS) which will only contain rectangle (as whole interface) with small lines as pins, with optional pin numbering, description and positioning (L/R/T/B).
The Schematic view is “logical connections”, so it normally does not follow the physical wire connections. Just whether the same points are electrically connected through the path of wires. Ratsnest lines that are automatically created in other view always go the shortest possible distance to join the needed connectors. To get something different, you have to route the wire yourself. The ratsnest line is a “hint”. If you manually create a wire that is electrically equivalent to a ratsnest line, the ratsnest line goes away.
If the parts you created have internal connections between externally visible points, you need to add “bus” entries to the part definition. That allows Fritzing to track the network (connected wires) through the part, and show the ratsnest lines going to electrically equivalent connection points. If you are intending to show cable harnesses, that is probably best done in the breadboard view. Schematic view is closer to a block diagram.
That is the intent of the parts editor. However when development died in 2016 parts editor was only partly completed and now that development is restarting hopefully progress on parts editor or a replacement will be made. Part of the problem with that is the code base is very complex and pretty much none of the original developers are left so progress is slow as the new development team learns the code.
Peter