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Old 11th Aug 2021, 1:58 pm   #1
Chris55000
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Default Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Hi!

Has anybody got any suggestions I can try for making my new circuit diagrams a bit smaller but still readable please?

I tried to draw out the circuit of the Vertical Channel of the Russian C1-112A Oscilloscope/Multimeter combination using my sPlan 7 and it still sprawled out to over 550 mm long, far too inconvenient to print cheaply !

To take an example, how do SE Labs/EMI do it – I think they can get a Vertical Oscilloscope Channel on one A4 sheet, including attenuator circuits, but I certainly can't !

Is it my symbol sizes are possibly too large, or am I using too large a lettering size, resulting in symbols having to be spaced too far apart?

I letter my diagrams in UNO Stencil Alphabet Upright BU for the component References, 3 mm high, Uno Stencil Alphabet Condensed BC, 3 mm high, for the component values, text notes are Uno BC, 3 mm high, and voltage readings/PCB external connections are Uno Stencil Alphabet Sloping BS, 2.5 mm high.

(These standards were adopted from Thorn/BRC service manuals as a standard for British commercial good practice).

Chris Williams
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Old 11th Aug 2021, 6:58 pm   #2
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Take a high definition scan (or digital photo) of the circuit and reduce it using a drawing package? 2:1 linear (4:1) area should do it and still be legible.
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Old 12th Aug 2021, 12:44 pm   #3
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Hi!

It seems to be a problem relating to the size, spacing and proportions of the components and lettering to me, and I just can't work out how the manual publishers did it!

I did try printing it on A4 size paper "as–is" but couldn't read the results – whether it's a natural consequence of "presbyopia" or there's something subtle about draughting these circuits that I can't just put my finger on I'm not sure!

I've got two more E.M.I. Oscilloscope Technical Manuals coming, so when they arrive I'll see if I can get some ideas!

Chris Williams

PS!

I have found the default passive component, semiconductor and thermionic valve symbols that came supplied with my "sPlan 7.0" were much too large on their own for anything more than a 555 circuit, etc.,on A4 paper, so I made my own, and these are now looking too big as well!
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Old 12th Aug 2021, 1:05 pm   #4
Craig Sawyers
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

The manual publishers used to draw the schematic using stencils and drafting film. That was exactly how I used to do it in my first job in the early 80's. But that was back in the day that circuit board layout was done by hand too.

With schematic software I can get nowhere near the component density I could back in the day.

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Old 12th Aug 2021, 1:31 pm   #5
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Hi!

AH!

That must be what the secret is Craig!

I've got a pair of Uno BB4 and BB5 B.S. Electronic Symbol Stencils buried somewhere, I shall have to dig them out and see what size Rs and C's they produce and then measure them!

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Old 12th Aug 2021, 2:50 pm   #6
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

The other thing was logic symbols - for something like an 8-line bidirectional latch you could draw the box just big enough to label the pins and function. With software you just get what you are given - or draw custom symbols.

I'm sure you will find that the stencil sizes are a good bit smaller than those on a schematic drafting package.

Unfortunately you're stuck if you use a package that does the circuit board layout from the schematic. I use KiCAD, and it is wonderful, but you are kind of stuck with the circuit drafting side of things.

Craig
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Old 12th Aug 2021, 4:21 pm   #7
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Do you have the option to allow the circuit design to be on a big 'piece of paper' then when it comes to printing, tell it to shrink it to A4?

Where I've worked with design / layout packages you split the circuit into blocks. Page one is the whole circuit, but as maybe 4 or 5 blocks, and only the signals that go between them. The following pages details what's in those blocks, which may be another set of blocks, until you get down to component level. It does mean you have to flick between pages to follow the circuit, but also makes it easy to print off on A4. It's kind of the same thing you do when writing code where mostly the top level code just calls a series of functions / subroutines.
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Old 12th Aug 2021, 5:11 pm   #8
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Chris, if you are creating these drawings, you can do a lot using Libre Office Draw. I have quite a few M/cycle electrics related symbols, and I import them to my drawing, and enlarge or reduce as much as suits me.
You can work in any size you want (A4, A3, probably A2) and if you want to scale things, you can set your magnification or reduction over a very wide range.
It is something you can use at once, but obviously takes time to learn all (NO, some) of its methods. If you draw your circuit with it, you can set line lengths, angles and much more by pressing F4 for any selected item.
I have done various circuits over the years always getting what I want.
I have also done very many "engineering" drawings for M/cycle stuff as well.
There is a very wide range of fonts, and for the lovers (and I know there are many haters) of Microsoft's "Comic Sans", you can import those to use with Libre Office. At the risk of upsetting some here (Craig?), I like Comic sans.
Les.
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Old 12th Aug 2021, 6:02 pm   #9
David Simpson
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Thing is, Chris, years ago, circuit diagrams, like many technical & architectural diagrams, and detailed maps, were hand-drawn on huge drawing boards - A0 size & similar, then reduced during the eventual printing process to A2, A3 & A4(or imperial equivalents), prior to insertion into manuals & handbooks. Some guys at the Hydro-Electric Board's drawing office in Elgin sat at boards approx 4' x 6'. The industrial printing machine could size diagrams down to A4 or up to about 8' x 12'.
I have an original 1940's Cossor 339 factory diagram on yellowed linen - about 3' x 4', but the Manual's version is near enough A4.
A cousin of mine used to be a draughtsman with MANWEB, & I remember him telling me his board was the size of a dining table.
Years ago, when I used to do building plans for folk, I had an A2 drawing board, but a kind chum in the H/E's office in Elgin would print off A3 plans for me which were the size the Council's Building Office wanted. I once did a wiring diagram(Shackelton "Dodo") in the RAF which was reduced from A2 to A3.
So, the simple answer is - most old circuit diagrams were hand drawn with large stencils for all the components we all know so well. Likewise, large lettering & numbering. Then reduced for printing purposes. Then along came CAD & other software which I haven't a clue about. Nowadays, I'm just an old outdated user of Rotring & Uno pens & stencils, and use an A3 Board. But - its a ****** on the old eyes.

Regards, David
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Old 12th Aug 2021, 8:32 pm   #10
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

The extent of circuits can always outpace the sizes of paper you have access to.

Eventually, you have to learn how to partition a circuit across multiple pages. This means partitioning your circuit so that each page has an understandable function rather than just being random. Then you may need to add an overall block diagram as a map for readers to visualise the overall function with.

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Old 13th Aug 2021, 11:20 am   #11
David Simpson
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

As David says, tis well worth initially drawing up a block diagram. E.g.many block diagrams, like circuit diagrams, for vintage(and not so vintage)radios follow a left(signal in) to right(AF out) format. With the likes of the military ARC52 vhf/uhf tranceiver the multitude of removable sub-units roughly corresponded to the blocks in the blockschematic diagram. Many old pre & post war diagrams for scopes(oscillographs) also followed a common protocol for orientating the circuitry around the CRT. Then along came HP & TEK & their range of scopes with removable sub-units. Along with the "fold-out" long circuit diagrams in their manuals for the mainframe & each sub assembly.
Many of the manuals & circuit diagrams circulating amongst the vintage radio fraternity & the associated Forums are in A4 PDF format. The first thing I do is get the diagrams enlarged up to A3, for ease of reading, prior to a project. But then, as I said in my previous post - back in the factory's drawing office these diagrams would've started out much larger anyway. Some diagrams circulating around our fraternity, sometimes take up four A4 sheets which then need to be carefully sellotaped together - to make up A2 in size.
Some VR folk are a dab hand at photographing with their iPhones or digital cameras(but not old me) and end up printing off decent A3 diagrams.
So, in conclusion, to save your eyes, and prevent RSI in your wrists, draw up diagrams at a larger "A" format, then print off at a readable smaller size. I've just an A4 printer, but the local chemist has an A4 - A3 printer, and many local authority planning/building offices have A2 printers. Obviously, a small fee is involved.

Regards, David

Last edited by David Simpson; 13th Aug 2021 at 11:22 am. Reason: spelling
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Old 14th Aug 2021, 7:09 pm   #12
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

From my days in the 1980s of drawing-out the emergent UK's "uucp" bang-path-addressed pre-Internet connectivity [where to send email you had to explicitly specify the route to your nearest 'well-connected' node] and the fun of BITNET IBM-specific networking back then I learned to break things down into nice modular chunks.

The biggest issue being to do consistent 'off-edge' connection references and keep the individual 'chunks' small because they would invariably get bigger as more participants joined.

and we really didn't believe things when a bunch of nodes associated with !kgbvax!kremvax appeared... on April 1st ..

https://www.newsweek.com/april-fools...eertema-318451
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Old 14th Aug 2021, 9:09 pm   #13
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Hi!

I'm reasonably happy I can split the gear into recognisable blocks by circuit function or complete PCB assembly, but no matter how much I partition the blocks, as "Radio Wrangler' David said, they still seem to sprawl over twice the "paper acreage" I plan for !

I'm looking at two EMI/SE Labs EM102 Oscilloscope Manuals I received this morning for ideas, as I've an oscilloscope input attenuator split over two wafer switch sections, a third wafer in the positive f/b loop between two differential amplifiers, followed by two pairs of cascode/long–tail–pair stages, a balanced delay line and a final balanced amplifier pair, before we go to the final deflection amplifier on PCB U3!

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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 12:53 am   #14
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

Hi!

As an update to this I have recently received a Cossor CDU120/4000 (not the battery portable CDU130 model, alas to say!) and a T.Q. D67A book, both in good condition, and a study of both of these revealed that even with my later revision of the resistor, capacitor, diode and transistor I'd made on buying sPlan 8.0, the symbols and lettering were still much larger than Cossor's & T.Q.'s, so I measured the symbol dimensions overall and got the following results :–

a) Resistor – 6.2 mm overall length including 1 mm end terminations, 6 "zig–zag" corners with two "half–zigzags" of 0.6 mm at each end – this allows you to place a wiper contact exactly in the middle of the symbol on a "zig–zag" corner for a pot, etc., when needed ;

b) Capacitors – each plate 3.2 × 1.0 mm filled black rectangle with 0.9 mm end terminations – electrolytic and non–polarised capacitors are drawn exactly the same with either/both plates as a non–filled outline or white–filled outline as the case may be – if you select "bring to front" for the white filling you'll get an electrolytic symbol exactly like that in E.P.E./P.E. magazine (use the UK published theory/project articles, NOT the "Silicon Chip" republished ones!) – the outline needs to be about 0.1 mm thick !

c) Inductors, coils and transformers :-

I'll write a special article on these for this thread later !

d) Diodes :–

Most of the diode symbols in Abacom's "sPlan", and most other tools are about 150%–200% too large for a diagram of any complexity on an A4 sheet of paper, so you want to re–scale them about 0.5 to 0.75 times their original dimensions !

e) Transistors :–

Again these need scaling down to 0.5 to 0.75 of their original supplied dimensions !

f) Thermionic Valves & Cathode–Ray Tubes :–

These warrant a special article of their own, which I will write in due course !

g) Rotary Wafer Switches :–

These are VERY difficult to draw the way these are depicted in manufacturer's original circuit diagrams, but it is possible !

h) Lettering for Component References, Component Values and general diagram notes :–

2.0 mm to 2.5 mm high maximum is a good size for all of these on an A4 sheet, or 3.0 to 3.5 mm for an A3 sheet !

Chris Williams
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 1:36 pm   #15
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

This is interesting. I am reading my way through decades of Model Engineer magazines starting in the 1940's. It became obvious that once the 1990's arrived then so did CAD, and the size of the drawings expanded hugely.

Back in the 40's a locomotive drawing was the size of a playing card, the magazine was only about A5. Then huge amounts of white space around the CAD drawings meant that the series occupied many more issues, sometimes over 60 with EIM, who wants to wait for more than 5 years to make something?

It may be just coincidence but the quality of the magazines also took a dive, along with the padded articles.

The hand drawn circuits etc are much better, just look at the Tek manuals.
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Old 23rd Nov 2021, 5:31 pm   #16
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

A method that I've seen on Philips diagrams amongst others is to draw a single line (busbar ?) from left to right and also top to bottom. Then any component connection from one part of the circuit to another is drawn to that particular line and is labelled at entry and exit points with a number or letter number combination. It does cut down on lines across the drawing but can make it harder to follow the circuit. Typical examples would be feedback, psu connections etc. Personally I prefer all the lines to be there on the drawing and if doing one of my own build jobs start with an A3 sheet of paper and pencil to get the circuit right, then if needed I might commit to cad if the job warrants it. I do have some A2 hand drawn circuits from some years ago, mostly for audio mixers and the like.

Dave
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Old 24th Nov 2021, 9:34 pm   #17
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Default Re: Circuit Diagrams sprawling over acres of paper?

What I do is to print it in chunks, with overlap, and then glue the pages together. I did the Syncal 30 circuit about a yard wide.

Another option is to take a PDF of the whole page down to your local print shop who may well have a plotter so can print it as long as you like (for a price).
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