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are drawing normal schematics a dying art?
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fourfathom:

--- Quote from: AlienRelics on November 25, 2021, 06:07:43 pm ---
--- Quote ---It looks like a great way to explain to non-technical people where to put what wire  :-+
It is a totally different thing that schematics

--- End quote ---

Very true, and sad. I blame Make: Magazine for destroying the art of drawing clear, cogent schematics. They have these bastardized half-schematic, half-pictorial diagrams with an IC being shown as a block with 14 pins and no labels. It requires you to break out the datasheets and redraw the circuit to figure out what is going on.

I guess the question is, do you just want to assemble other people's projects? Or learn how they work so you can change them and even design your own?

--- End quote ---

Make: Magazine isn't intended for engineers, techs, or other people who are already skilled in the art.  It's for those who want to get their feet wet, or are looking for ideas (although it's true that I occasionally pick up an issue to see what's going on).  When I was starting out (at the age of nine or ten) I had no clue how those tube things worked, and I couldn't have designed a radio to save my life.  But I did have simple schematics (which might as well have been Fritzing diagrams) which showed me how to re-wire war-surplus airplane radios so I could use them at home.  This was how I got started, and I see Make as providing a similar pathway for people who are interested in electronics.  Perhaps they will eventually graduate to schematics, but anything that helps them get over the initial hurdles is OK with me.
AlienRelics:

--- Quote ---Make: Magazine isn't intended for engineers, techs, or other people who are already skilled in the art.
--- End quote ---

Which is precisely why their schematics should be as clear and easy to understand as possible.
Berni:

--- Quote from: AlienRelics on November 26, 2021, 03:18:21 am ---
--- Quote ---Make: Magazine isn't intended for engineers, techs, or other people who are already skilled in the art.
--- End quote ---

Which is precisely why their schematics should be as clear and easy to understand as possible.

--- End quote ---

Yes but what you find more readable might not be the more readable to them.

When they have a transistor in there hand they have a black thing with 3 pins on it. They don't even know the correct order of pin numbering for the package, let alone what each pin on a transistor schematic symbol is called. They need to be able to find the datasheet to find the pinout etc..

On the other hand if you show someone a drawing of a TO-92 and draw lines from each pin, then pretty much any sensible person will be able to wire it up from that drawing alone, even if they have no electronics experience at all.

Even just planning your breadboard layount can take a bit of skill to lay things out nicely compact without boxing yourself in while at the same time keeping jumpers short and neat.

Yes it's infuriating for me to read such diagrams. But for someone who is just trying to replicate the build they are indeed easier. Perhaps after they get a few projects working they will get enough interest in electronics to learn how to read proper schematics and to learn how things he put together actually work.
rsjsouza:
In my early days of electronics, the pictorial diagrams were everywhere in the magazines I used - I personally don't see any bastardization of anything, as one is not really replacing the other.

Despite the magazines still showed the schematics and principle of operation, the visual correlation between the actual part and the pictorial diagram was an incredible tool to get a successful build. And that is what it is: a tool to help people build their projects.
SL4P:
In my limited experience, the absolute best technical documentation I was exposed to - both verbal and diagrammed - was from AMPEX in the 1970s.

Everything from theory of operation, detailed block diagrams - fabulously accurate and readable schematics, and no colour or photos unless it was in a supporting role.

Mind you, the technical docs for a video tape recorder was contained in five 4-inch thick ring binders.
They were so good, I’d take one home, and read them overnight through my traineeship!
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