Hello!
My name is Paul Csanyi. I am a technics teacher in an elementary school.
I use mainly Debian GNU/Linux operating system. I have installed the gEDA suite on my system.
I am a newbe to the electronics and to the gEDA tools, but the electronics is so interesting theme to me so I decide to study gEDA tools and use it for making some simple projects. With these simple projects I intend to teach my pupils to fundamentals of electronics.
I tried first the gEDA GUI, but then I red that it is better to use gEDA from the command line, so I did so.
I have tried several times gEDA tools to make some simple projects. Up to the present I learn how to use gschem tool very easily. I made schematics easily.
But then I need a symbol that I can't find in gschem library, so I decide to make it. I follow the tutorial http://wiki.geda-project.org/geda:tragesym_tutorial and ask some questions on the mailing list geda-user (The list is not active anymore - check archives and current lists).
Here in this Wiki I want to share some of mine experiences with the gEDA suite. I want to share some addons to the tragesym tutorial.
If these thoughts are specific for the Debian system, like the place of the tragesym_template.gz file, then I shall write a note of this.
I made a symbol for the 36-pin Centronics connector.
From the “Tragesym tutorial”:
Step1: Open a tragesym template file
Note: This is Debian specific.
Step2: Download the part data sheet and find the pin list
Step3: Copy the pin list into an editor and prepare it
Step4: Insert all missing data into the spreadsheet
Step5: Export the spreadsheet into a tab seperated text file
Step6: execute tragesym and create the symbol
Step7: check the result with gschem and do some artwork
cp 36-pin_centronics.sch /home/username/gEDA/gaf/gschem-sym/connectors/36-pin_centronics.sym
This symbol can be viewed here:
http://www.mediamax.com/paul_csanyi/Hosted/gschem_schems/36-pin-centronics.sym (dead link)
In this symbol I put the footprint: “SUBD_FEMALE_LAY 25” but this is not the approppriate footprint for the 36-pin Centronics connector. I tried to find footprint for the 36-pin Centronics connector here: http://www.gedasymbols.org/, but with no success.
I think I gone to make one 36-pin Centronics footprint soon, using “PCB Footprint Guide” here:
http://wiki.geda-project.org/geda:pcb_footprints.