These programs are suggested for the reader to know, for design and simulation of electrical circuits.
- EAGLE - Program for electronic circuit design, circuit diagram and PCB (printed circuit board) layout with very comprehensive component libraries. Of the programs I used, this is the simplest to find all the necessary components (or sometimes substitutes), organize and connect the components. It features auto-routing, exports to a lot of formats to send to manufacturing and other resources, including its own scripting language. On the site there are lots of contributions to integration with other tools and adding components and features.
- Fritzing - A schematics and PCB program that is designed to be simple as the Arduino (software). Its distinguishing feature is the ability to assemble or representing the wiring diagram in a breadboard, which is almost equal to what the user would see (or will see) to assemble the circuit on a real breadboard. The standard component libraries are geared mainly to ready development boards, PIC microcontrollers and basic components.
- KiCad - Other wiring diagram drawing and PCB layout program, this open source. Good component library, but to edit the positions of the components is complicated. The wires are not moved along with the components, to move a connected component, the wires that connect it must be edited as well. Zooming with the mouse wheel and navigation with 3 button (pressing the wheel) are simple to understand, but also difficult to handle. A differential feature is the native generation of a 3D design of the product, not all components have their designs in 3D, but these can be done by the user.
- Scilab with Xcos - Scilab is an open source software for mathematics, it is not targeted at electricity, but can be used to solve equations of energy and electronic systems. Xcos is an embedded module in which control systems schemes (including circuit diagrams) can be mounted in for simulation. It has great quantity and variety of components and can be expanded.
- Qucs - Quite universal circuit simulator, electrical circuit simulator. It has a large variety of components and easy to use interface.