If you design maker hardware - you'll find investing in Fritzing objects to be an excellent method for encouraging projects. It'll also make your documentation look really nice.

Fritzing is an open source CAD-like graphical software for all operating systems that allows full interaction between breadboard, schematic and PCB views. Customers or other enthusiasts can wire up breadboard diagrams and then turn that into a schematic and even a finished PCB!

For example, here's a demo of the part we'll be making, wired to an Arduino and buzzer in breadboard view:

And the corresponding schematic & PCB views

The idea is great but the making of those lovely objects is not easy. Here's some tutorials on how to make objects from scratch:

These are all good for making custom parts but wouldn't it be really cool if we could take this:

A PCB file in EagleCAD format...and wave a magic wand to turn it into something like this?

A perfect 1:1 part, based on the CAD file?

WELL YOU CAN! (sorta)

Using the fancy eagle2fritzing project by Fritzing team and the excessive effort of PaintYourDragon who wrassled with the code and got it into a really good spot!

This toolset works with any OS, in theory. Its been tested on Mac OSX and Windows 7 x64 and the tutorial is writted on Win7 so some variation may be required to get it working on your setup. Srsly.
HERE BE DRAGONS! eagle2fritzing can be very nerve-wracking at times. We did get it to generate our lovely parts but time and coaxing is required! It is not for people who are unable to put in the many (possibly frustrating) hours to learn the quirks and tweaks necessary for really advanced usage! We offer absolutely no support what-so-ever for this tutorial, you are on your own....You have been warned!

This guide was first published on Jul 05, 2016. It was last updated on Aug 05, 2016.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Jul 05, 2016.

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