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I'm new to Arduino. I'm curious whether there is a standard way to record the plan of a device—for instance, if I wanted to share it or communicate the design to other people. I realize the short answer here might be, “yes, make a circuit diagram.” Are there perhaps widely used tools for producing those, perhaps with add-ons for Arduino boards? (I'd prefer a more semantic representation than, say, making a diagram in Inkscape.)

adam.baker
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There is no plugin to a program like Inkscape - as far as I know. It doesn't make much sense to have one. With an Arduino circuit you normally want to show the real electrical connections. A block diagram without real electrical connections doesn't help much in reproducing the project. You can do it, but you will have to do it on your in in a graphic program. I think this is only helpful for rather big projects, where each block contains not only the Arduino but also many further components of that functional unit in your project.

To show the circuit you basically have 2 options:

  • A wiring diagram: This is an image, mostly created via the software Fritzing, which shows a breadboard and the components of the project placed on it. The electrical connections are represented by colored lines. This is good for beginners, who cannot yet read a schematic and want to reproduce the circuit on their own breadboard. Though wiring diagrams, especially Fritzing, is only standard in the Arduino/Beginner world. The more you get into professional realm, the less you will see them. They look like this (please note the internal connections, that a breadboard has in its numbered rows):

    enter image description here

  • A schematic: A schematic is the standard way of describing any electronic circuit. For example look at the Arduino Uno schematic. Every part is represented by a symbol with pins. The pins get connected with lines (representing wires or PCB traces). There are many different softwares for creating schematics, for example Eagle, KiCAD, EasyEDA and Altium Designer. You can choose yourself what to use. Look at the options, that the softwares provide. Some are premium but have free options, others (like KiCAD) are open source. I personally use KiCAD. At least for KiCAD you can download part repository files (like this one), which include Arduino boards, so that you can place them directly on your schematic. I'm sure there are similar resources for other programs as well. Export the resulting schematic to PDF or an image format so that everyone can read the schematic without having your program installed.

    An additional benefit in creating a schematic is, that all these programs also support creating a PCB layout from the schematic. So it gets easier to design a PCB from your circuit for DIY or ordered production.

chrisl
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  • As the OP asked for a “semantic“ representation, I would add that a schematic is “semantic” in the sense that, in its original format, it can be used to generate a netlist, which is useful to make sure one gets the PCB connections right. – Edgar Bonet Apr 27 '22 at 20:04
  • You can get KiCad for the downloading. It works great from schematic capture through generating the Gerber files to get PCBs manufactured. It will take a little practice to get the hang of it. – Gil Apr 28 '22 at 15:00