A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to try a new electronics design automation (EDA) tool called EasyEDA. It is a free web-based tool for schematic capture, PCB layout, and circuit simulation. The best part of any cloud- or web-based development tool is that it runs on a remote server (no worries to install on local machines), always up to date, and is accessible from anywhere through internet. EasyEDA is a zero-install cloud-based EDA application; all you need is a web-browser and internet connection and you are ready to draw circuits, run SPICE simulation, design PCBs, and even place an order for fabricating PCBs. I have a very pleasant learning experience playing with it for a couple weeks and I found the learning curve wasn’t too steep.
EasyEDA offers free schematic capture, SPICE Simulation, and PCB design.
The complete list of features of EasyEDA can be found in its website. I have summarized below a few things of EasyEDA that I liked the most.
Schematic capture:
My experience with drawing circuits using EasyEDA was very pleasant and easy to learn. The circuits look very cool and can be saved as PDF, image file, or in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. The circuit below shows an example of using the schematic capture tool for drawing circuit.
A circuit drawn using EasyEDA.
Parts search:
This is my favorite feature. In addition to the standard sets of component libraries listed on the left side of the schematic tool, EasyEDA offers a powerful search option by clicking on More Libraries link at the bottom. You can type in the part name that you are looking for and it will get you all the matches it finds after searching a database of 100000+ components derived from all available open-source Kicad and Eagle libraries on the internet. This means you can easily access to the thousands of Eagle parts contributed by Sparkfun, Seeeds, Adafruits, and many more, through EasyEDA platform. Isn’t that a pretty neat feature? If you still didn’t find any part, you can create one. See the EasyEDA tutorial page for that.
EasyEDA gives access to thousands of open-source Kicad and Eagle libraries.
Searching for third-party parts is easy and requires no additional installation of libraries.
Access to public projects:
EasyEDA offers easy access to public projects posted by individuals or open-source hardware making companies (such as Seeedstudio). The design files for these hardware projects can be opened online through a single click and can be edited to implement any changes specific to your needs.
Easy access to design files of open-source projects shared by others.
Photo view:
I also like this feature where you can view how your PCB would look like after you get it fabricated. You can choose different colors for the PCB view to match with the color of the soldermask that you will get.
Photo view feature reveals the look of actual PCB to be made.
PCB order:
Once your project is finished, you can order your PCBs right from the same interface at a competitive price, which could be very helpful for beginners who don’t know where to send the design files to fabricate PCBs. But you are not obliged to order PCBs from them and it allows you to download your project and Gerber files for fabricating PCBs from your place of choice. I designed and ordered some PCBs for my car’s battery and charging system monitoring project and it turned out really great. Shown below are some pictures of the assembled circuit board.
Assembled board for car’s battery monitoring device.
Showing the battery charging voltage from the alternator
when engine is ON.
The beauty of EasyEDA and any other cloud-based EDA tool is that your design files are saved on a remote server, which means you can work on your project from any machine you want. This is very appealing to me as I could use my spare time more effectively if I didn’t have to return to my workstation to finish the project.
The following Youtube video from GreatScott provides a quick review of EasyEDA features.
