Electronic circuits

[Jumpy]

Hello,
my boss asked me to evaluate the possibilities of drawing electric or electronic circuits with Visio, because we already have Visio and wouldn't have to buy another eventually expensive software for this.

I know there are some stencils for this in Visio 2007 Professional but has someone actually worked with them and can tell me about it?

One of the problems is, that in the stencils are mainly American symbols and I need German (or European?) ones. They are often a little bit different.
(I know I could work around that, by changing the look of those shapes to German standard, but that may be much work).

Has someone used or knows about if there a shapes, which cam simulate their electrical properties?

Is it possible to simulate the functionality of complex circuits?

I hope you have input for me.

[Paul Herber]

We have a range of electronic symbols, £15, $25 or €17.50, 419 shapes at the last count, certainly all the European symbols.
http://www.sandrila.co.uk/visio-electronics/

[ivan]

Is it possible to simulate the functionality of complex circuits?

you want just to draw schemes or you are looking for some extended functionality ?

[wapperdude]

My impression with using Visio for schematics is as follows:
1.)  It works well for documentation.  I use older symbols from Visio 4.1 Technical.  Everything I need is there.  I'm just looking for Visual presentation.
2.)  Paul Herber's collection is quite extensive.
3.)  It's easy to develop custom symbols;  would be time consuming to do a full set though.
4.)  It's not really suitable for simulation.  Although, with work, i.e., coding, it should be possible to generate a netlist.
5.)  The "rubber-banding" feature of Visio is not as comprehensive as a schematic capture routine.
6.)  I've not tried to generate a BOM (bill of mat'l).  Visio's report builder may do this.  It might be necessary to add custom properties to the symbols.

If you want to simulate, there are a variety of free programs out there, each has it's own quirks.  Linear Technology (LTSpice), Texas Instruments (Tina), Analog Devices (Multisim), to name a few sources.  

HTH
Wapperdude

PS:  I re-visited Paul's collection, and he has a nice set of package shapes.  These are quite useful in doing layout floor plans for printed circuit boards.