I have been trying to produce a board layout in Fritzing, but finding the parts seems to be hit or (most likely) miss.
Is there a systematic way of finding things. The preview pictures seem to have little relation with what is displayed when selected
At the moment I am trying to find a 4 pin female header.
“SparkFun-Connectors-M08-SMD-STRAIGHT” looks like the kind of thing I want, but I only want 4 pins. There seem to be number of variants, for practically every number of pins, but not 4.
There are a variety of ways of finding fritzing parts. First search for what you want with the parts search in the parts bin (the magnifying glass which by default is at the very bottom). That will find parts in core that aren’t in the bins. Then if it isn’t there then you can search google for ‘fritzing part your_part’ which may turn the part up on github or in someones private stash or in the projects directories on the main fritzing site (downloading the fzz file will often find the referenced part in the temp parts bin from where you can export it and use it). In this case what you are likely looking for is connector (first item in the block marked connection in the core parts bin). If you drag that on to the sketch and then click on it the Inspector window on the lower right will let you change the number of pins to 4 and whether it is female or male and other parameters (but only if it is in the sketch not in the parts bin).
Peter
Thank you. I found the part I want in Core.
The search occasionally seems to find what I want, but amid lots of irrelevant “hits”, and it didn’t find this.
If you search Generic Header you will get a 2 pin generic header. Drag that out and then in the inspector you can adjust the number of pins. The key to finding the parts for laying out PCBs is to not look for exactly what you want but rather search for a specific footprint or search for a product family such as accelerometer and then look through the results for one with the correct footprint even if it is the wrong part number etc. Also even if you pull out the wrong part (maybe the wrong size smd resistor) you can then go into the inspector and change its size or even change from through hole to smd.
You can search for a part in the search box and just hover on each part and look at the 3 icon previews in the Inspector. The PCB footprint gives away most of the parts.
Yes search is somewhat odd. I think the problem is likely that it is using the tags information from parts which is user supplied and of variable quality. It may also be using information from the descriptions (I haven’t actually looked at the source to see though.) As you have found there is often a lot of irrelevant parts included, many of which seem totally unrelated to the search but it is none the less a good place to start.
Peter
Thanks vanepp for your explanation… It helped me…
An ADDITION (would be NICE) to the magnifier that allows searching the selected PARTS LIST on screen that actually selects the part for you when the “Part Already Loaded” message comes up. I still have 2 limit switches that I have been trying to find for a week, because a hex/binary reference says they are already loaded. WHERE ? the NAMES are not the SAME on screen, nor do the icons look even SIMILAR !
Bill
Likely the part you are trying to load has the same moduleId (the hex string) as a part in core parts. That is what causes the already loaded message. If someone created a new part but didn’t change the moduleId this will happen. Finding the part can be a problem though since indeed the new part may have a different name and images. Here I attempted to load a part (the fc-51) that is already in core parts which gets this message
clicking OK lets Fritzing load, and then entering FC-51 in to parts search brings up the part with that moduleId
that tells you what part in core parts is in conflict. To fix this you need to unzip the part you are trying to load and change its moduleId in the fzp file. One potential problem is the moduleId doesn’t have to contain the name of the part (as the FC-51 does) in which case you need to identify the part another way. My usual method is to use grep to search the fzp files in core parts (in fritzing/fritzing-parts/core for the moduleId and then read the .fzp file to find the part name (the title should give you the part name that will let part search pull up the conflicting part.) Not the easiest in the world but it works. Then you need to modify the part you want to load so the moduleId doesn’t conflict. This tutorial on part making may help there.
as an alternative you can upload (upload is 7th icon from the left in the reply menu) the .fzpz file to the forum for the parts that you can’t load and I can fix them up for you.
Peter
Winder-Retrofit01-Breadboard.fzz (39.1 KB)
VanEpp,
I tried the hover, but I would also like to see the system LOCATE the file it says I already have, I spent HOURS with the inspector method…inspected ALL parts on my system … did not locate.
The other subject. I was hoping the SCHEMATIC system was working, I lose accuracy on schematic and get RatsNest that have to be deleted, and it is not correct. I edited the schematic,
repaired the errors and found half my breadboard missing … and on the third try I deleted all extra and LOCKED everything lockable. I set “auto…RATSNEST to DO NOT”. Returned to breadboard to a destroyed graphic with half the “Fritzing” deleted. Maybe it is the “BAD PARTS” I have, but the bi-directional correcting is a bit time consuming. I attached the file and 2 images. Any ideas, fill me in.
Bill
There are several problems here (one of them apparently in my original motor driver part!) First you seem to have run across a Fritzing bug which causes routing database corruption. We have never been able to reproduce the problem (in more than 5 years of trying) so can’t yet fix it. The known solution is to make all connections in one view then when that is complete change to the other views and route them via the rats nest lines. The bug appears to be tripped by making incorrect connections in another view which under some circumstance corrupts the routing database and leaves unwanted rats nest lines. This error appears to be in my original part:
note Fritzing hasn’t loaded the motor driver part (which it should have from the temp parts bin, but the motor driver isn’t in the temp parts bin.) That appears to be an error in the original part that I haven’t found yet. The part was made back in 2017 when I was just starting to make parts so I may have screwed something up. I will look at it and correct it. Notice the motor driver part is missing from breadboard here.
If I load just the motor driver part it works
but if I save the sketch as test-Sketch.fzz, exit Fritzing and attempt to load the sketch test-Sketch.fzz the same error you are seeing appears.
indicating there is something wrong in the motor driver part. I’ll fix that then we can go from there to fix your problem (although from some tests that may require starting your sketch from new as I so far haven’t been able to correct it!)
Peter
As far as I know they are all based on my original DM860A part which as noted (and just corrected in this post)
has a bug which I just corrected. That will solve some of your problem with the can’t find this part error and the motor driver being missing from your sketch. For the limit switches if you would upload the .fzpz file for both the NO and NC versions of the switch (upload is 7th icon from the left in the reply menu) I can probably tell you why they won’t load together (probably duplicate moduleId but maybe something else!) Now I will have a look at your original sketch and see if can recover it with the fixed part.
edit:
OK, it looks like you don’t have a routing problem, but you do have some wiring errors here. This is a sketch with my corrected motor driver added and wired.
Winder-Retrofit01-Breadboard-fixed.fzz (49.1 KB)
the unrouted nets (circled in blue) indicate there are connections in schematic or pcb that are not reflected in breadboard (or are incorrect!) As well the common of one limit switch doesn’t connect to anything (I suspect but don’t know for sure) it it should be 5V as shown by the red lines. The LED on the arduino needs a series resistor the current connection will draw too much current and potentially damage the Arduino port or damage the LED from over current. Moving to schematic
there is no gorund connection on the 7805, and the circled pin shouldn’t be ground (and the diode as wired will short the input voltage to ground which is likely not correct!)
The good the good thing out of all of this is I have found a couple of Fritzing bugs to report (my part should cause an error message, and moving the breadboard in breadboard also moves locked components which both appear to be bugs!)
edit1:
The sketch Winder-Retrofit01-Breadboard-fixed.fzz above in fact appears to be still corrupted. I was poking at this to make a problem report on the issues and as a side effect have perhaps made a better sketch to start from. I started by deleting all traces in all views, then unlocking and moving the breadboard down (so the components on it don’t have connections!) and moved the LED on the arduino up so it is also not connected.
however that still leaves rats nest lines connected in schematic and pcb (circled in green here)
to (hopefully!) fix that select the ratsnest line in pcb and right click and select delete rats nest line. That should clear the routing connection from the database which is what we want. First however switch back to breadboard and verify that the diode is locked (which it is) and thus should not move.
however when I delete the rats nest line in pcb
the rats nest line indeed gets deleted
the diode in breadboard is moved (which appears to be a bug because the part is locked!) Deleting the wire on the IC causes the IC in breadboard (which is also locked) to move and adds wires to all the connections other than the one the rats nest line was removed from.
and deleting the rats nest line on the resistor both moves the resistor and makes a connection to the breadboard. To fix this I deleted all the added wires and moved the components and breadboard back to where they started from and loaded my corrected motor driver part to give this sketch which should be ready to be re wired without database conflicts.
Winder-Retrofit01-Breadboard-ready-to-wire.fzz (26.4 KB)
which looks like this
If you do the breadboard wiring completely then do schematic (and pcb if desired) I think you should be fine the database corruption should be cleared. However the safest way to proceed is to start a new sketch and place the components and wire breadboard and then schematic. Hope this helps!
Peter
Thanks for your time. I have to re-read the whole display here and attempt to absorb the whole thing. I have used Diode isolation to ground on 7805 for 40 years.
Bill
Here is URL explaining my use of the diode:
A Zener can also be used as well as pot.
Bill
Perhaps I don’t understand how the hookup should look as schematic is currently incomplete. I assumed that ground from the power source connects with the blue lines in this image, in which case the diode will short the power source. Is there an alternate connection going on that I am missing (that is possible, as well as this is a result of the routing corruption making unintended connections as this is your original sketch!)
If the ground to the 7805 is else where then this may be just fine. The main outcome of the post above (other than several Fritzing bug reports 
) is that you indeed have database corruption in your sketch. As noted the safest course is to start a new sketch from scratch but since you have done the layout already that is a fair amount of work. The sketch Winder-Retrofit01-Breadboard-ready-to-wire.fzz in the post above should (but note the should!) be ready to wire with the database corruption removed without having to redo the component placement. If I missed something in removing the database corruption you will see unexpected rats nest lines again and then you would need to start again with a new sketch to be sure the corruption is gone. By the way you may be better off using a battery (even though it isn’t 5V) in breadboard like this:
as your power source. The power source only appears in schematic and thus won’t reflect connections from breadboard. In this case that may indicate a wiring error in breadboard as the connections from the battery I added (assuming I did so correctly in breadboard of course!) indicate there is a problem. The positive voltage is going to the 7805 gnd pin and nothing appears to connect to the Input pin on the 7805. The rats nest lines are created from connections in the other 2 views and are often a good indication of wiring errors.
the battery circled in blue indicates the connections breadboard thinks exist which don’t look correct to me (which as noted may be due to errors in my assumptions!)
Peter
