Good tool for Mac OS X to draw circuits

Question

I am looking for tool to draw circuits on Mac OS X. I mostly need it so I can add it into presentations. So the requirements are that it looks preety.

Or you could use Windows or Linux ;) – fuzzyhair2 Jul 26 '14 at 22:04 — fuzzyhair2, Jul 26 '14 at 22:04

score 16 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 22 '11 at 09:12

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For drawing circuits I use Omnigraffle and the Electronics Extra.

alt text http://www.damhave.com/Stencils/files/page3_1.jpg

For physical hardware diagrams I use Fritzing.

Checkout a video on Fritzing here.

edited Mar 22 '11 at 09:12

Daniel Grillo

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answered Nov 18 '09 at 09:52

littlebirdceo

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Fritzing looks really cool, and appears to be useful for schematic diagrams as well. – Clinton Blackmore Nov 18 '09 at 19:07
In my experience Fritzing bogs down very quickly. I have a design with 15 components and 35 wires and my quad core iMac with 16G of RAM is burning 60% of all four cores and it is nearly unusably slow. Eagle is hard to get into but it is a much better choice for the mac – JockM Feb 09 '14 at 21:39

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 18 '09 at 10:09

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There is also OSX version of Eagle Cad. Although software itself is not very Mac-like nor exactly easy to use.

answered Nov 18 '09 at 10:09

tuupola

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No it really isn't. Still very much worth using though. This tutorial should help you to get started: http://www.instructables.com/id/Draw-Electronic-Schematics-with-CadSoft-EAGLE/ – NeedTungsten Nov 18 '09 at 22:59

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 22 '11 at 07:57

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There is always XCircuit and MacSpice. They maybe overkill for whatever your needs are, but might as well learn from them too.

edited Mar 22 '11 at 07:57

Kortuk

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answered Nov 18 '09 at 18:25

JScott

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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 30 '14 at 01:55

I've found that DigiKey's SchemeIt editor online works quite well, with export to PDF and PNG.

I wish that there was an agreed-upon exchange format for schematic diagrams, so that circuits could be moved easily from one schematic capture tool to another.

I use Eagle CAD for board design, but their schematic capture tool is awkward and produces ugly schematics—they look like they were designed for 1970s-style pen plotting. I wish that I could move Schematics from SchemeIt into Eagle CAD (and vice versa). I also have a number of schematics in CircuitLab that I had to abandon when they started charging for the service—it would have been nice to move them to another schematic capture system.

Michael · Answer 5 · 2015-02-10T20:43:47.810

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Have you given Upverter a try? It has a mac app as well as runs in the browser so you can try it out without installing anything.

[I work at Upverter]

edited Feb 10 '15 at 20:43

answered Feb 10 '15 at 16:10

Michael

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Hi Michael please take a look here: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/promotion – bummi Feb 10 '15 at 17:34

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 18 '09 at 21:26

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I recommend Eagle from Cadsoft. It's the best free schematic/layout editor there is in my opinion.

answered Nov 18 '09 at 21:26

Dago

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 18 '09 at 22:48

I use Omnigraffle for drawing the simple circuits I use in my Arduino classes. For circuit design, I use Eagle. It's a "real" schematic capture program (i.e. CAD program for circuits) that you can also use to produce circuit boards.

Omnigraffle is great for producing really nice looking schematics, as long as they are not too complex, because it doesn't have the intelligence that a real schematic capture program does on how to maintain connection between components. Omnigraffle also doesn't have very many components in its library so you have to make your own for even simple things. Eagle's part library is so big it's daunting.

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 22 '10 at 19:38

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I think the gEDA package will compile under Mac OS X.

answered Oct 22 '10 at 19:38

Thomas O

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It does; I've used it before. It's available through Macports, but you'll want to build from source as the official packages tend to lag behind development quite a bit. – Kevin Vermeer Mar 22 '11 at 13:24

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 20 '09 at 16:58

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Someone asked Make a similar question (that was not Mac-specific). Their answer suggests Fritzing, too, and there are other tools mentioned in the post and in the comments.

answered Nov 20 '09 at 16:58

Clinton Blackmore

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score 0 · Answer 10 · edited Jul 26 '14 at 18:16

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Try Lucidchart. You can download a circuit maker for free.

edited Jul 26 '14 at 18:16

Ricardo

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answered Jul 26 '14 at 17:20

Marcy White

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score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 12 '14 at 05:59

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I offen used idraw or Super Vectorizer to create my own vector graphics. If you are interested, here you go http://effectmatrix.com/mac-appstore/Super-Vectorizer.htm

answered Nov 12 '14 at 05:59

liliba

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Nov 18 '09 at 10:12

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You may be able to access some of the Linux stuff which is around, through things like MacPorts.

answered Nov 18 '09 at 10:12

Amos

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Oct 22 '10 at 18:21

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I tried an evaluation version of McCAD and was quite pleased with it. I found it significantly more Mac-user-friendly than Eagle (which I also tried). YMMV, of course…

answered Oct 22 '10 at 18:21

Kaelin Colclasure

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 21:34

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Libear Tech has a Mac Ox version of its Spice simulator probably the best spice simulator out there

http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/

answered Feb 07 '14 at 21:34

John Mladenik

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Feb 07 '14 at 21:39

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If you don't specifically need the program to be on your physical computer, CircuitLab and 123D Circuits (formerly Circuits.io) are both excellent web applications. Both have paid plans, but the free functionality on 123D is all you'll ever need.

answered Feb 07 '14 at 21:39

felixphew

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Good tool for Mac OS X to draw circuits

15 Answers15