How do I use EasyEDA? What are its advantages over the competition?

Introduction

EasyEDA is software for designing printed circuit board block diagrams or electrical schematics. EasyEDA, released in August 2013, is available on Mac Os, Linux and Windows. Easy Eda software allows you to simulate your circuit before making it in real life.

You can download it right here.

There’s a lot of documentation on easyEDA on the manufacturer’s website, but it’s all in English.

At the end of this course you’ll find a comparison of easyEDA with its main competitors: Fritzing, Flowcode, Proteus and Tinkercad...

Software difficult to learn

Before starting this course, we’d like to tell you that this is one of the easiest programs to get to grips with for Arduino. The software is not designed for this particular board, unlike tinkercad, for example.

Advantages of Easy EDA

  • EasyEda is free software
  • It simulates your circuit
  • Many components available
  • Easy-to-share project with the online version

Disadvantages of Easy EDA

  • Lots of English documentation
  • More difficult to learn than tinkercad
  • Simulation doesn’t let you see your LED blink, for example, but you will see a graph with the voltage.

There is also a web version of EasyEDA

You don’t need to download the software version of EasEDA. You can use the web version of the software here.

Discovering the software

This is what you get when you open the software:

On the left is a large list of components available for your project. This is one of the strengths of this software. The list starts with the simplest components, such as the lcd screen or 7-segment display, through to the most complex components, such as capacitor references…

  • The different circuits you can create

Clicking on new gives you an example of the different files you can create:

How do I choose the component I need?

The software can be rather confusing at first glance. In fact, most components are represented by their schematic rather than their external appearance. Here’s an example with a diode:

This is what EasyEDA will offer you as a diode.

Here’s a picture of the diode you’re probably more familiar with!

One technique for finding all your components is to know their part number. When you find a component in the library, you’ll get all the information you need, including its image:

Create an account to save your projects

If you want to save your circuit, or even create a project, you’ll need to create an account:

Your first circuit

We’re now going to make a circuit to light up an LED with a voltage source.

a) Creating the circuit

Here are the components we’ll need:

An LED
A 220 ohm resistor
a current source
a ground

You’ll find all these components in EElib. This is the library already integrated into Easy Eda. To link the components once placed, click on the two dots at the ends of the components you wish to link.

Here’s the result:

Component not found?

You may have trouble finding the component you need. Unlike other simulators such as Tinkercad or Flowcode, components are not always available. So you’ll have to build them yourself, using simpler components (all simple components are in Easy eda, and more complex components are the sum of simple components).

We’ll now look at how to simulate this circuit.

b) Simulating the circuit

Now let’s see how to simulate your circuit. To do this, click on run simulation :

The result is as follows:

As you can see, you don’t see the LED light up like on tinkercad, you just see the voltage displayed, as this is software more aimed at professionals and less concrete for your circuits.

Error in the circuit!

If you make a mistake in your circuit, such as forgetting a voltage source, you’ll get an error during simulation. In fact, EasyEda helps you solve your problem by detailing the error it has obtained:

Analog simulation!

As you can see, this is an analog simulation, i.e. no program controlling a board. We’ll see below how to simulate with a program. However, you should be aware that there are software programs, such as proteus, that are much better suited to simulation with a program.

The Arduino board

As you can see, the Arduino board is not included in the Eelib library. So we’re going to look for it in the component library.

  • The arduino uno board

To do this, go to library. These are all the components that are not installed on Easy Eda but are available.

Here is a list of available Arduino boards. You will find the arduino uno, micro, nano, mega, leonardo and many others…

For our example, we’ll take the arduino uno board:

  • Arduino board circuit

Let’s take a look at how to connect and flash a LED with an arduino uno board. First we place the 220 ohm resistor components and a LED :

To make the LED flash, you’ll need to program the Arduino Uno board.

Programming

To make the LED flash, you’ll need to program the Arduino Uno board. On Easy Eda, you can only code in javascript. It will be much more complicated to create your program than on tinkercad, for example, which understands the Arduino language.

The EAsy Eda software is not designed to simulate circuits with programs, but just the behavior of your circuit by applying a voltage to it.

To be able to execute a script for your circuit, you’ll need to have first written it in javascript programming software and saved it in .js format.

Once your file is loaded, you can run it with run script.

Alternatively, you can write your javascript code directly into run script and launch it afterwards.

PCB board

Once your circuit has been completed and simulated, you can send it to the factory along with the PCBs.

By clicking on manufacturing, you have several options:

  • Parts Order links to a site where you can buy your components.
  • PCB Order allows you to buy the electronic board on which you will place your components.

BOM displays the list of components used. You have a button to buy them. You can also export parts to get an excel of the name and manufacturer for each part:

You can then retrieve the excel file to have your PCB manufactured by the supplier of your choice, or use the ones proposed by Easy Eda by clicking on PCB Order.

You can also just buy the components if you want to make the PCB yourself.

Conclusion

Easy Eda is a free electronic circuit design and simulation software widely used in the electronics world. It has many features for making your own circuits, adding components and creating them yourself.

Nevertheless, it’s a program that’s best suited to the professional world, as it’s difficult to get to grips with. The components are shown in electronic schematics, which doesn’t make the software easy to use for beginners. What’s more, the components are programmed using javascript, which is less intuitive than the arduino language used on tinkercard, for example.

We’d only recommend this software if you want to become a professional in the world of electronics. Otherwise, we’d recommend Tinkercad, a much simpler and more intuitive simulation software for Arduino.