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Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronics

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Light current (talk | contribs) at 03:16, 15 October 2005 (→capacitor: sign). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
This page is still a draft: the project has just started and we are still working on the main guidelines. If you want to help us, just join us by adding your name under 'Project members'.

The aim of this project is to better organise information in articles related to electronics. This page contains only suggestions, with the hope to help other wikipedians writing high-quality articles with the minimum effort.

Scope

This WikiProject aims to provide a standard style for writing articles about electronics. What the project is exactly about will be discussed by the Wikipedians joining the project: electronics is a very broad subject, and many other fields are related. Telecommunications, biomedical and electric often use electronic circuits (and vice versa): should they be included?

Starting point definition of scope of project

The field of electronics is the study and use of electronic devices that operate by controlling the flow of electrons or other electrically charged particles in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. The design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems is part of the fields of electronic engineering,(....) and the hardware design side of computer engineering..... from Electronics page lead para.-- --Light current 21:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

For now, the project will be about anything electronics or electricity and closely related subjects. In the future we may restrict the scope if the project grows too large, and sister projects about these other subjects may be split off.

Project members

Please dont forget to make new members welcome by leaving a message on their talk page.

  • Alejo2083 I started this project. I am a sound/broadcast engineer.
  • Omegatron Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (concentration in signal processing and communication systems). Employed in the field of audio recording and live sound equipment. Interested in pretty much everything else.
  • Light current If you cant beat em, join em! (Used to be EE now just a student of the universe!)
  • Alfred Centauri
  • mako EE undergrad; will try to help out when not too busy.
  • Snafflekid IC design engineer here.
  • Krishna Vedala ETC under-undergrad. will try on Microprocessors n controllers.
  • Rdrosson Graduate student in electrical engineering, specializing in photonics and digital signal processing.

Task list for Project Members

Check & improve if possible

To be expanded/modified

To be created

Other open tasks for project members

1.Cleanup and slim down Transistor page --- Completed?--Light current 07:30, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


2. Operational amplifier applications-- diagrams need standarising using conn dots on all figs not just some.--Light current 01:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC). --- awaiting effort

Redirect recommendations

RLC circuit appears to have all the attributes of a good page on tuned circuits. So propose renaming RLC circuits to tuned circuit or removing requirement for new page content. Maybe a redirect from tuned circuit to RLC circuit.--Light current 07:35, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Existing article merging/splitting suggestions (please get agreement before proceeding)

1.Merge semiconductor and semiconductor device--Light current 02:39, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

2.Merge electrostatics and static electricity


3 Split electronic filters as it will be far too massive when all the material has been added. Disscussion here.


4. Merge transconductance & mutual conductance or redirect?. I created mutual conductance not knowing transconductance existed!--Light current 00:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

5 Merge LC circuit, RLC circuit with new tuned circuit page--Light current 18:32, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

But RLC circuit is so long already. Pfalstad 05:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

RLC circuit appears to have all the attributes of a good page on tuned circuits. So propose renaming RLC circuits to tuned circuit or removing requirement for new page content. Maybe a redirect from tuned circuit to RLC circuit.

Capacitor

6. Split capacitor into theoretical page and page with information on practical capacitors. Reason: page now very large.--Light current 04:13, 9 October 2005 (UTC) Yes, it is. But what to call the separate pages? Pfalstad 05:04, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Page name suggestions:

Capacitor & Practical capacitors,

or Capacitor & Capacitor types--Light current 07:22, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Task progress statements

semiconductor/semiconductor device

Merge of semiconductor and semiconductor device not desirable/possible. Both pages cleaned up and interlinked instead by User:Snafflekid.--Light current 16:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Completed?

I did not merge the articles but made them both pertinent. I think there is no major edits left to make to either article. Snafflekid 18:54, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Action complete--Light current 20:03, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

capacitor

Copied the practical information to new page called practical capacitors --Light current 03:16, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

electrostatics

Static electricity content has been copied to electrostatics. Suggestion to redirect from static electricity to electrostatics by Omegatron. Agreed by--Light current 16:52, 1 October 2005 (UTC) Awaiting comments on merge of static electricity|electrostatics[reply]

Chebyshev filter

Tightened up Chebyshev filter article--Light current 18:32, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Butterworth filter

Tightened up Butterworth filter article.--Light current 20:00, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict over content between Pfalstad and me --Light current 23:17, 8 October 2005 (UTC). Discussion on content continuing.--Light current 02:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict settled. LC conceded. First and second order Butts will be included.--Light current 14:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

...with an explanation of the similarities. User:Omegatron/sig 15:02, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Transistor

Power factor correction

Major edit of Power factor correction Snafflekid 20:12, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Tuned Circuit

Page created with immediate redirect to RLC circuit

Task complete--Light current 07:16, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Featured article nominations

Capacitor

nominated by --Light current 16:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC). Needs a more polishing before its ready. Im not happy with the layout of photos at top of page--Light current 16:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Transistor

looks like a candidate to me. Snafflekid 18:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it really needs some better/more pics especially near the head of article to givre it visual impact. --Light current 07:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Page getting too big again with lots of stuff that doesnt really fit. I have pruned again--Light current 01:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Transformer

looks like a candidate to me if people stop messing with it and we get the piccies right!.--Light current 17:23, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Drawing circuits

One of the main parts when writing an article about electronics might be drawing of a circuit. At the moment, there are several pictures showing electronic components around wikipedia, most of them from Commons. Anyway, paying attention to them, it will be clear that anybody used a different programme to draw them, getting different quality. Moreover, a lot of them did not use a specialised programme, so they had to draw all the components from scratch, starting from simple lines and circles. Normally in these cases the output quality is very high, but the time to make them must have been very long.

Because of these reasons, this project has to propose a standard to be used to draw circuits, suggesting tips or whatever, in order to get the best possible quality with the minimum effort. First of all, let us start from a sort of "wish list", with the list of all the feature this programme should have:

  1. It must be free and open source: this is the way wikipedia is, and so must be any programme wikipedia suggests.
  2. It must be multi-platform: in order to be proposed as a standard, anybody must be able to use it. The programme has to run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
  3. It has to be able to export in SVG: the SVG is the format that was proposed by wikipedia for diagrams. It provides the best quality at the minimum space.
  4. It has to have a big standard collection of electric/electronic components, with optionally an extensible library: this way it will not be necessary to draw components from scratch, and, just in case, it will be necessary to do it just once.
  5. It has to help the schematic drawing by a grid or something like this: if it does not give the possibility to "hang" the components to a grid, it will be hard to make a precise drawing
  6. Connections should be better than just lines. They should attach to components, default to right angles, move when the components are moved, autoroute around objects, and so on.

At the moment, as far as we know, there is no programme satisfying all these points. The best thing to do now is to make a small list of all the programmes wikipedians used to draw circuits, with some personal comments, so anybody can make up his mind by himself. Maybe, in the meanwhile, the programme we are waiting for will arrive or we can try to contact the developers of a free programme in order to move the development towards our needs (wikipedia is important and, if we are talking about a free programme, this looks possible).

Inkscape [3]

Example of Inkscape's SVG output, hand-drawn symbols

It satisfies the first three points, but it has nothing circuit oriented. Adding some already-made drawings and a grid looks easier than adding all the things it already has, that is why it looks the most promising programme, but at the moment it is quite hard to use it for circuits since everything must be made from scratch. Alessio Damato 18:50, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Inkscape has a pretty good interface and nice output, but it's specifically meant for artistic drawing and not diagramming. I was reading around and they plan to introduce some more diagramming features in the future, but don't want to go too far in that direction for fear of bloating past their primary art focus. They've just added the ability to create program extensions, though, which could be very useful. User:Omegatron/sig 14:45, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Xcircuit [4]

Negative impedance converter drawn with Xcircuit

This is the programme I have been using most: it is meant to be used only for drawing circuits for professional publications. It is very powerful, with a huge standard library and very easy to use. Even if the output can have any quality in PNG, it does not support SVG. It is not natively multi-platform (it is developed mainly for linux), but it is possible to make stand-alone executables for both windows and Mac Os X (and the author might will in the close future) adding some libraries in it. The format it uses is postscript, that is quite similar to SVG in its structure a future support is possible. At the moment there is a project to make ghostscript (that is multi-platform) be able to convert from ps (the format xcircuit uses) to SVG; see [5] - Alessio Damato 21:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dia [6]

Star-triangle transformation drawn with Dia

It is a compromise between the two previous ones: it exports in SVG, it has a small library of electronic components and it has a grid; the bad points are that it can not rotate objects (thus having strong limitations). Alessio Damato 18:50, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

GIMP [7]

It is a programme for raster image processing, so it is not meant to be used for any kind of schematics. It does not support SVG and everything has be drawn from scratch. Anyway it is multi-platform and several people used it on Commons to draw circuits. It could be useful for some post-processing, but the output will not be in SVG. Alessio Damato 18:50, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Klunky

An example op-amp circuit drawn with Klunky and the GIMP

User:Omegatron has been using Klunky schematic editor to draw basic circuits, and then a raster editing program like the GIMP to modify the screenshots. The Klunky program is public domain, and he has enhanced it with additional components, etc. (See User:Omegatron#Electronics_diagrams. Enhanced version is here.)

Advantages

  • Relatively quick, at least compared to drawing components by hand
  • Public domain
  • Can be enhanced even further with better-drawn components

Disadvantages

  • Outputs a raster format
  • Everything is restricted to blocks and some compacting to save space is sometimes needed in the image editor afterwards
  • Style changes between creators. Even the style has changed for the same creator somewhat, since he switched to the GIMP which has different fonts and smoothing.

Beats drawing it by hand, though, and drawing simple circuits is pretty fast. User:Omegatron/sig 20:16, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Microsoft drawings

Common base amplifier drawn with Microsoft's Autoshapes

Advantages:

  • Nice-looking output
  • Meant for creating diagrams
    • Autorouting of connectors
    • Snap to grid

Disadvantages:

  • Non-free
  • Raster output
  • Requires drawing each component by hand at least once.

See commons:User talk:Peo#Diagrams for discussion

SIMetrix [8]

Common emitter amplifier drawn using SIMetrix.

Advantages:

  • Nice looking output.
  • Schematic editor cum SPICE simulator.
  • Free version with unlimited schematic drawing and editing.
  • Selection of colours for components, wires, etc. for easy identification.
  • Zooming facility, auto-routing and snap-to-grid.
  • Simple placement of components - select and click-to-place with mouse.
  • Automatic repeat placement of last component.

Disadvantages:

  • Cannot directly save to image (saves only in its schematic file format). We have to do a select all, copy-paste into MS-Paintbrush (or possibly other image processing program).
  • Free version has limited simulation capability (not applicable for drawing schematics).
  • Not open source
  • Most versions are Windows only, especially the free download.

Templates

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WikiProject iconElectronics NA‑class
WikiProject iconThis page is part of WikiProject Electronics, an attempt to provide a standard approach to writing articles about electronics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the page attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. Leave messages at the project talk pageElectronicsWikipedia:WikiProject ElectronicsTemplate:WikiProject Electronicselectronic
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