Hello Dave

• Thank you for taking the time to document your technique. i know others will find it helpful
• VeeCAD needs something like this as a built in feature. For example, a side panel that you can drag parts to. I can't say if or when I can work on it, due to tricky circumstances.

Hello Hamilton

It must have been you who asked for components to overlap the board edge. I knew the Track Editor would solve that problem for free.

I have just realised that if VeeCAD were to allow parts to go off-board, it would achieve the effect that Dave is talking about, without needing to use the Track Editor. Parts off-board is a matter of reworking the movement limits in the code. I'll put it on the list of good ideas. I am very aware that my imagination ran out years ago, and that it is only user suggestions that give me a new insight.

Thanks Dave. Nothing serious. Just can't find uninterupted time or a quiet place to get much work done at present.

Hi again,
I've noticed another problem when you make alterations to the track lengths.

It basically "kills" all the ROUTE features !

The ROUTE menu"Greys out" and even re-setting the track lengths back to "normal" does NOT enable the ROUTE functions again.

No big deal if all you're doing is a fairly simple board that you can route manually but worth noting.

Sandy.

Thanks, Larry!

Schematics used to explain "how a circuit works" and would include off-board items.

These days schematics are more a manufacturing document that defines only what is on the board. Unfortunately, that makes it harder to know what connects to the board, and harder to understand how it works.

My solution is to put connectors on the schematic and add say an external pot or switch as a TinyCAD drawing using lines and shapes. That way TinyCAD ignores the drawing when creating the netlist and bill of materials but the human eye can see what connects where. I would draw a potentiometer with 3 lines going near the connector as an indication of what will go there. The drawing looks different to the TinyCAD wires and components and I don't confuse them.

In the electronics manufacturing world you order a board assembly company to send you a batch of boards loaded with components, then you put those boards in the product. In that case you only want your Bill of Materials and netlist to contain the on-board components, because you will supply the off-board components separately. Of course when making something for pleasure, you can have a different system.

This forum thread is so good that I will add some of the ideas to the help file, and mention the issue of on and off board components.