I just need software that will let me draw and print a vector/object circuit diagram, something like a simplified Inkscape with electronic symbol library. I'm starting from known working circuits, making minor mods (different tube models, running on different filament or plate voltage, for instance, or a pentode in place of a triode). So far, the answers all seem to point to software packages with circuit simulation, which require having a model for every component, or the simulation doesn't work - unfortunately, the SPICE models that are required are scattered far and wide and very, very few of them are for vacuum tubes, meaning I'd have to create my own model data for components that, in most cases, haven't been made in thirty or forty years.įurther, I genuinely don't want to deal with the learning curve of a circuit simulation at this time. Ideally, it should be free and open source. It should do 'object drawing', with no loss of resolution as a drawing is scaled larger or smaller. What I really need is software that's as easy to use as GeoDraw - including, if the symbols aren't included or downloadable, the ability to create symbols that can be pasted, rather than having to be drawn over and over. I know my way around GIMP to some extent, but it's a bitmap editor at heart it doesn't really handle objects. I'm noddingly familiar with Inkscape, but find it more complicated to use (in truth, I had trouble just drawing lines and circles last time I tried it). The current version, however, seems a little retro for a multi-core, multi-gigahertz, multi-gigabyte system. Twenty years ago, I'd have used GeoWorks Ensemble's GeoDraw - an object drawing tool that ran well on a 386 with 2-4 MB RAM. I specifically need to be able to include symbols for tubes with various numbers of grids and other internal parts (beam power elements, for instance), beyond the usual resistors, capacitors, coils, and so forth. In order to document my 'as built' work, I need to be able to draw a circuit diagram, and in order for it to be neat enough to publish on the Web, I'd like to use my computer to do the drawing. This may go as far as getting an Amateur license. That's as in 'Radio Rangers' - crystal sets, to start, then moving up to tubes, and likely staying at that era (I don't have any real interest in transistors).

Electronic schematics free