FOSSPicks
FOSSPicks
The promised profusion of extra time has failed to materialize for Graham this month, leaving him with too many synth kits to build, a table littered with components, and a leaking toilet.
Circuit design
Horizon EDA
One of the many things that once seemed impossible, but is now accessible, is creating your own printed circuit boards (PCBs). You can now prototype and design your own boards from your humble home computer, and there are also now many manufacturers who welcome print runs as small as one. Add to this a crowdsourcing community happy to dive in to add their own orders and support themselves, and home brew PCB design should properly be considered a new cottage industry. The central part of this new ecosystem is open source software that can help you design, arrange, and build a circuit board that will work exactly as you intend it to and print according to your own specifications and requirements. This is the job of an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) package, which is exactly what Horizon EDA happens to be.
Horizon EDA is a comprehensive circuit design and creation tool that bundles several key components (pun intended). The first, and perhaps most important, is called "the pool." This is the parts library that lets you drag and drop predefined and readily available components into your designs. There's a comprehensive editor for adding your own parts, but you're more likely to clone the 35,000 parts database from Horizon's own GitHub repository and use this via the tabbed-by-category pool manager. There's a big difference in the way EDA implements versus other open source tools, because it uses a very flexible hierarchy of JSON-formatted files for each part, tracked by metadata stored in SQLite. It can also only contain real parts with full part numbers you can type into sites like Digikey.com to place an order. This is something you'll appreciate if you've used, for example, the Arduino IDE parts list.
With a new project created, the second key component is the schematic editor. This is where you place components from the pool to design the circuit with the functionality you need. The connections themselves are composed of networks, such as tracks for different voltages and signals. These networks can have their own algorithmically controlled rules, such as clearance, track width, and hole size. These become apparent in the third key component, the board layout preview. This is where your design becomes an actual circuit with components placed on a board. This view can quickly become complicated when it arranges your components and circuits across the various layers and tracks required to take the logical concept into the physical realm. You can even view the final board in exploded OpenGL 3 3D, which is a brilliant educational tool useful for any example boards you might want to download or share.
The GTK+ 3 interface is absolutely beautiful throughout, and the development team has succeeded in making their application a playground for experimentation. It's also brilliant having everything in one place, without having to skip between different applications or worry about whether one layer is going to be properly translated into a circuit. When you're finished, you don't just get a PCB you can order; you also get a fully populated and formatted bill of materials ready for your component order. If you've ever had to do this manually, you'll know this is half the effort of the entire circuit design. That all this can be found in a new and yet fully mature open source application is remarkable. There's never been a better time to brush up on your electrical engineering knowledge!
Project Website
Music player
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Endless OS 6 has Arrived
After more than a year since the last update, the latest release of Endless OS is now available for general usage.
-
Fedora Asahi 40 Remix Available for Macs with Apple Silicon
If you've been anticipating KDE's Plasma 6 for your Apple Silicon-powered Mac, then you're in luck.
-
Red Hat Adds New Deployment Option for Enterprise Linux Platforms
Red Hat has re-imagined enterprise Linux for an AI future with Image Mode.
-
OSJH and LPI Release 2024 Open Source Pros Job Survey Results
See what open source professionals look for in a new role.
-
Proton 9.0-1 Released to Improve Gaming with Steam
The latest release of Proton 9 adds several improvements and fixes an issue that has been problematic for Linux users.
-
So Long Neofetch and Thanks for the Info
Today is a day that every Linux user who enjoys bragging about their system(s) will mourn, as Neofetch has come to an end.
-
Ubuntu 24.04 Comes with a “Flaw"
If you're thinking you might want to upgrade from your current Ubuntu release to the latest, there's something you might want to consider before doing so.
-
Canonical Releases Ubuntu 24.04
After a brief pause because of the XZ vulnerability, Ubuntu 24.04 is now available for install.
-
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.