MB-ing:
Hey, I built one of those, and it actually functions!
I love to tinker with electronics, and I've created many an odd device going back to my childhood. A few years ago I was working on one particularly-complex relay-controlled circuit, and I wanted to see if the beast actually worked before I went through all the trouble of building it. The result is the attached Visio. It's not complete (no project ever is), but it handles what I needed at the time. It currently supports:
- Battery
- Right-click to turn on/off
- Turns red when powered on
- Wire
- Simple and complex geometry
- Turns red if positively charged, blue if negative, black if floating
- Toggle switch (xPDT)
- Left-click to flip on or off
- Right-click to add another pole, change caption, etc.
- Light bulb
- Turns yellow when powered on
- Relay (xPDT)
- Turns blue when powered on
- Right-click to add another pole
The way it works is to right-click on the page background and select the component you want to add. (Those page options are automatically created whenever you create a new page.) As you'll quickly find out, not all the components are supported yet. If you need an unsupported one (complex wire, bulb, or battery), just go to the sample page and copy it. I wouldn't recommend copying the supported components because they'll crash Visio if you do.
The attached Visio has a sample circuit I designed when I was 13, a simple two-bit binary adder that's been a mainstay counter for innumerable projects of mine. Turn it on, and every time you hit the Count switch, it adds one. (The Count switch should be a momentary contact pushbutton, but I haven't designed one yet.)
Of course it can occasionally crash (it's not complete, as I said), so I added a right-click page option to nudge the VBA events into restarting. Yes, I know it's slow, but like the Waltzing Bear, it's not so important that the bear waltzes badly; it's more significant that the bear waltzes at all. And yes, it yells at you if you connect plus directly to minus.
I find the whole thing fun to play with, but then I'm like that.
Enjoy!
- Ken
