2
\$\begingroup\$

Lately I've been seeing a lot of badly hand drawn schematic in questions. Of the questions that I have seen about 70% are so badly drawn they are unreadable to my estimation. I am wondering if we should have a policy against hand drawn schematics and direct users to the built in tool or to post with another graphical software package.

Does this sound like a good idea? Thoughts? I'm thinking a solution would be closure until edited.

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • \$\begingroup\$ I agree that many of the schematics are poorly drawn and would be far more readable if done through the editor but sometimes there may be a necessary component that isn't in the library or a configuration that can't easily be drawn with the editors limitations. \$\endgroup\$
    – vir
    Commented Jun 20 at 0:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ There are some really badly drawn schematics but, what irks me more is the scrawly and usually unfathomable handwriting associated with them (especially handwriting associated with formulas and derivations). I can usually figure out the schematic but, the handwriting leaves me scratching my head most of the time. I think we should also stipulate the if a diagram uses an arrow to indicate a voltage that it isn't used to indicate field values (opposite direction arrows) without clear meaning attached. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Commented Jun 21 at 10:17
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ If hand drawn diagrams meet Olin's guidelines (which is entirely possible) they are very welcome. \$\endgroup\$
    – Russell McMahon Mod
    Commented Jun 26 at 9:46
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ In 2012 I opined "... A hand drawn diagram is fine as long as it is clear, well labelled and unambiguous. It need only include the circuitry relevant to the question, but more is OK. ..." \$\endgroup\$
    – Russell McMahon Mod
    Commented Jun 26 at 11:01

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
14
\$\begingroup\$

Good question - in my view we should not have a policy against hand-drawn schematics, because:

  • The built-in editor is not available on touch devices (phones, tablets etc.). We shouldn't force people to only use PCs / Macs to ask questions on the site.
  • Users who have got a perfectly acceptable hand-drawn schematic would be disadvantaged.

Instead, let's address the real problem, which is unreadable schematics, right?

In those cases where a schematic is too poor to be readable, then yes as you said, close the question (as "needs details") until a better schematic is provided. That seems appropriate, since if the schematic is unreadable (and assuming that a schematic actually is needed for that question) then "needs details" would be a suitable closure reason.

That gets the results we all want (i.e. good enough schematics for people to understand the question) but without unreasonably insisting on EDA schematics, for those people who have got a good enough hand-drawn diagram.

Or to put it another way, if we do create a policy, it should be that any schematics must be readable. It could warn that hand-drawn schematics need special care to be readable - lighting, contrast, symbols etc. and it could warn about whatever problems you've been noticing that made some of them unreadable.

\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ There's other free schematics tools out there like Scheme-It or Falstad. Nobody has to use the built-in editor. \$\endgroup\$
    – Lundin
    Commented Sep 10 at 14:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Lundin - I'm not sure if you're agreeing or disagreeing with what I wrote. If it seemed like I was saying people had to use the built-in editor, that wasn't my intention. || Just to be clear - I was answering whether hand-drawn schematics are acceptable, not trying to list what alternative schematic tools there are. My mention of the built-in editor was just to highlight its limitation for touchscreen devices. As you've said with Falstad as an example, a free simulator can also be used to draw schematics, although I've never seen a Falstad schematic showing reference designators :( Can it? \$\endgroup\$
    – SamGibson Mod
    Commented Sep 10 at 14:53
5
\$\begingroup\$

We should definitely allow hand-drawn schematic. I'll prefer a tidy hand-drawn one over a chaotic Altium one every day.

Now, we should also be pretty selective on the quality of illustrations we "welcome". Just as when in written text, the lack of sentence structure and punctuation, or abuse of terminology, will make a question ambiguous or unintelligible, a complex badly drawn schematic is a non-starter. Simple as that – the means of representation must suffice for the question asked.

The drawing of a complete discrete four-stage audio amplifier will have to follow higher standard than the drawing of an LED with a series resistor. (This applies to CAE drawn schematics even more so. There's absolutely no reason to not let a student re-draw their schematic in a somewhat sensible, oriented, straight, minimum crossings way, if the way it's currently drawn significantly increases the load of helping them, and stops the would-be answerer from writing an answer. Just as with software, making things tidy often helps finding obvious bugs.)

(To help that a bit, I have a guidance-style self-answered question here, specifically on how to post pictures of hand-drawn schematics: How to add a schematic if my mobile device can't run the schematics editor? )

\$\endgroup\$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .