Do-It-Yourself Layout Creator [open-source]

Electric Warrior · Post by **Electric Warrior** » 07 Apr 2011, 17:35

You might want to make standing components a selectable option. In many cases one would rather bend the leads under the component than stand em up.

DrNomis · Post by **DrNomis** » 10 Apr 2011, 00:44

bancika wrote:Oh I see, you always end up with standing resistors? Just double click on resistor body and make it smaller (length and width). Also, check those boxes on the right side of length and width boxes to make those values default for resistors. It automatically turns into vertical mode when pin spacing is less than resistor length.
Cheers

I'll give that a try Bancika..... cheers for that, other than that, I think that DIY Layout Creator is a killer app, once I've mastered how to use the software, I'll be able to start uploading my own Vero layouts....

By the way, is there any way to add component symbols for things like LM7815, and LM7915 Voltage Regulators?, I've tried using the one for TO220 type transistors, but found it a bit awkward.....

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 11 Apr 2011, 09:28

those are available in TO-3 and TO-220 packages, are you referring to TO-3 variant?

DrNomis · Post by **DrNomis** » 11 Apr 2011, 17:33

bancika wrote:those are available in TO-3 and TO-220 packages, are you referring to TO-3 variant?

It was actually the TO220 packages, I really need to sit down and get familiar with this app,Bancika....

Thanks for all the help you've given me so far, much appreciated....

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 12 Apr 2011, 08:11

I've already got TO-220 and TO-92, so you should be covered. I need to add horizontal mount variation of TO-220 though

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 12 Apr 2011, 13:00

Little update for the Mac users:

I'm running 10.5.8 on Intel, and I couldn't get DIYLC to run because it said I had version of JRE that was too old. Turns out that 1.6.0_24 was already installed, but not set as the preferred handler for java (1.5.0_28 was default). So it turns out the solution is to open the Java Preferences app in the Utilities folder and change the order in which the Java versions are used. 1.6.0_xx needs to be first in the list.

Now I can run the new DIYLC!!

Chugs · Post by **Chugs** » 12 Apr 2011, 13:36

I just changed the Java order as per your suggestion and it worked for me too! Thanks!

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 12 Apr 2011, 13:42

Awwww yeah!

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 14 Apr 2011, 00:00

I think it was mentioned in the FAQ http://code.google.com/p/diy-layout-creator/wiki/FAQ

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 16 Apr 2011, 19:33

bancika wrote:I think it was mentioned in the FAQ http://code.google.com/p/diy-layout-creator/wiki/FAQ

Ahh, I didn't even check there.

Still, my way is more friendly for the typical Mac users, as they hate editing text files and usually don't even know the command line is there.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 16 Apr 2011, 20:00

I've just finished up my first layout using the new version. All around, I'm super impressed with it. What a great piece of software!!

I'm going to mention some issues I've had, however, just so the information is out there. I'm using a Mac Mini (Intel Core Duo, 2ghz, 4gb RAM) running OS X 10.5.8 and Java 1.6.0_24.

• When text is added to the layout, the app starts to crash frequently. Every second edit attempt (change a part, add a new part, export as PNG) causes a crash. Increasing available memory does not prevent the crashes.
• I'd like to be able to rotate the position/orientation of switches
• The ability to add the BOM to the layout is awesome, but I'd prefer that it didn't include wires and eyelets and non-component elements. Either that, or allow for manual editing once it's been created.

That's about it. Great application!!

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 17 Apr 2011, 21:47

Thanks man, appreciate your comments.
The same problem has been reported for mac before (here's the link to it http://code.google.com/p/diy-layout-cre ... tail?id=20 )
What helped in his and few other cases was to increase available memory for DIYLC. Since you have 4g of ram it shouldn't be a problem to give it one or two. To do that, open run.sh file and replace two parameters that assign initial and maximum available memory to something like this

-Xms1024M -Xmx1024M

That's for 1g of ram. Note that everything else should remain the same in that file. If you want to give it 2g, just multiply those numbers by two.

Let me know if that helps. As for other two issues, rotation of switches has been requested (http://code.google.com/p/diy-layout-cre ... tail?id=53), and I think the other one as well. Anyway, I'll fix them both. It's just that I won't have time to touch diylc for the next few weeks because I'm preparing my thesis.

Cheers,
Bane

Btw, I added your non techie solution for java version to the FAQ, tnx.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 17 Apr 2011, 23:16

I tried increasing the memory to 2gb, and that doesn't help with crashing. But I have noticed that crashing only becomes an issue after I've placed text on the layout. So it seems that something about the text rendering is causing the app to go down.

Thanks again for the great software!

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 18 Apr 2011, 08:39

Bummer, it seems to be somewhere in java for mac because I saw some similar cases on google. Do you have the latest version of JRE? Maybe they fixed it in the meantime

Cheers

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 18 Apr 2011, 12:57

My JRE is version 1.6.0_24. I believe that is the latest available for OS X.

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 18 Apr 2011, 13:39

Yeah, that's the one

. Let's make sure that memory settings you changed are applied. When you run the app, there's a small memory bar in the bottom right corner. It's gray and blue. Move mouse over it and tooltip will tell you how much is allocated. I really hoped that would work, it helped in other cases

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 18 Apr 2011, 19:57

Hmmm. Okay, that was the problem. I was starting the program by double-clicking on the JAR file instead of executing the run.sh file.

It was previously set to 128MB, which explains why it was choking.

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 18 Apr 2011, 20:06

Spoke too soon. If I move large object quickly (like a board), it crashes.

bancika · Post by **bancika** » 18 Apr 2011, 20:43

crashes at 2g too?

culturejam · Post by **culturejam** » 18 Apr 2011, 20:52

I've got it set to 1GB. It's a lot more stable, but still crashes occasionally.

Do-It-Yourself Layout Creator [open-source] [link]