Fritzing is an open-source hardware initiative that makes electronics accessible as a creative material for anyone. We offer a software tool, a community website and services in the spirit of Processing and Arduino, fostering a creative ecosystem that allows users to document their prototypes, share them with others, teach electronics in a classroom, and layout and manufacture professional pcbs.
Produce your own board
With Fritzing Fab you can easily and inexpensively turn your circuit into a real, custom-made PCB. Try it out now!
Participate
Fritzing can only act as a creative platform if many people are using it as a means of sharing and learning. Let us know how it fits your needs and how it doesn't, show it to your friends, and share your projects.
Fritzing is an open-source initiative to support designers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to take the step from physical prototyping to actual product. We are creating this software in the spirit of Processing and Arduino, developing a tool that allows users to document their Arduino and other electronic-based prototypes, and to create a PCB layout for manufacturing. The complementing website helps users to share and discuss drafts and experiences as well as to reduce manufacturing costs.
Fritzing is essentially an Electronic Design Automation software with a low entry barrier, suited for the needs of designers and artists. It uses the metaphor of the breadboard, so that it is easy to transfer your hardware sketch to the software. From there it is possible to create PCB layouts for turning it into a robust PCB yourself or by help of a manufacturer.
Why Fritzing is needed
Physical prototyping tools have come a long way and already allow non-engineers to quickly turn their ideas into functional interactive prototypes. However, the prototypes in this stage are still raw and not robust. This is where Fritzing comes in: It allows the designer to move to the next stage and create a finished PCB of your individual circuit in the desired shape. This makes the circuit robust and is the basis for a permanent installation or even batch production of your project.
Parts Library
Fritzing is installed with a Parts Library--and with every new release we are adding new parts. In Fritzing, parts are organized into "bins" which can be accessed from the parts palette on the right. Simply drag a part on the sketch area to use it, and then adapt its properties in the info palette. Learn more about Fritzing's palettes.
Fritzing ships with several bins. The most important are "Core" and "Mine". The Core bin contains all standard parts, where families of similar parts are aggregated into one (e.g., the red LED stands for all the other colors). The Mine bin will contain your custom created parts.
To search for a part, use the type-in field at the base of the parts bin palette. This will match any word containing your typed-in text, so for example typing in "cap" will find all capacitors. A search will bring up a Search bin containing all the parts matching your query.
Another bin is called "Contrib". This contains all the parts that you imported, or that came with Fritzing but aren't part of the core library.
Lastly, there is another set of bins, each of which contains a collections of parts. For instance, a set of parts made by a single manufacturer.
All of these bins can be found by clicking on the small folder icon at the bottom right of the parts bin palette, and when the menu pops up, rolling over the "open" option.
