Circuit Diagram Maker

The model fills in whatever you leave out, and every guess is a chance to draw something you did not mean. A good description reads like a short parts list with the connections spelled out.

• Name the parts and their values: “330 Ω”, “10 µF electrolytic”, “2N3904”, “LM358”.
• Give the supply: a 9 V battery, a 5 V rail, ±12 V, or 230 V mains through a transformer.
• Say how the parts connect: in series, in parallel, from the output to the − input, between VCC and the base.
• Name the inputs and outputs you want labelled, such as Vin, Vout, SDA or GPIO4.
• For a chip or a board, list the pins you use. The maker draws an IC as a box with only those pins, which keeps the drawing readable.
• Keep one diagram to one function. A power supply, an amplifier and a microcontroller each read better as their own diagram than as one sprawling sheet.

There are two ways to get a circuit diagram out of AI. An image model paints something that looks like a schematic. A language model can instead describe the circuit as data, which a program then draws. The difference shows up the moment you read the result closely.

An image model has no idea which wire connects to which pin. Its diagrams often have resistors with the wrong number of terminals, labels that are almost words and lines that stop short of anything. They can look convincing in a thumbnail and still fall apart when you try to build from them, and you cannot change a value without generating a whole new picture.

This maker takes the second route. The model writes the circuit as parts and connections, and a deterministic engine does the drawing, so symbols are always the standard ones, text is always crisp and every line is a connection the netlist knows about. That is also why a diagram can be exported to KiCad or SPICE: there is a real circuit underneath it.

Parts in series sit on one path, so the same current flows through each of them and their voltages add up to the supply. Resistances in series add: R = R1 + R2. The LED series circuit and the voltage divider are series circuits.

Parts in parallel connect across the same two nodes, so they share the same voltage and their currents add up. Two resistors in parallel give R = R1 × R2 / (R1 + R2), always less than the smaller of the two. Most real circuits mix both: the Wheatstone bridge is two series pairs in parallel across one battery.

To draw either, say it in the description: “three 1 kΩ resistors in parallel across a 5 V supply” draws differently from “three 1 kΩ resistors in series”.

A circuit diagram is where a board starts. When you want to build one, Open in ProtoFlow sends the diagram to the free ProtoFlow desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, where it becomes an editable schematic. From there the same project goes all the way to manufacturing:

• pick real parts from LCSC, DigiKey and Mouser, and run ERC on the schematic;
• lay out the PCB, route it with the auto-router and run DRC;
• simulate with SPICE (ngspice) before committing to a part;
• export Gerber X2, drill files and a JLCPCB-ready BOM and placement file;
• import and export KiCad, Altium and EAGLE projects.

The desktop app also drafts whole schematics from a written brief, and its AI agent can place and route the board while running the checks as it goes. As with this maker, the AI’s work is a draft for you to review. If a part has no symbol or footprint yet, the AI part generator builds both from a part number or datasheet, and the documentation walks through the full flow.

• Students draw circuits for homework and lab reports, and use the calculations tab to check their own working.
• Teachers make clean figures for worksheets and slides, and change one value to make the next version of a problem.
• Makers sketch a project before wiring it, and keep the diagram with the build notes so they can fix it later.
• Engineers rough out a sub-circuit for a design review or an email, then take it into KiCad or ProtoFlow when it becomes real.
• Technical writers produce consistent SVG figures for documentation and application notes, or circuitikz for LaTeX.

• Signal flow left to right: ask for the input on the left and the output on the right.
• Supply at the top, ground at the bottom. Supply and ground symbols beat long rails across the page.
• Use net labels such as VCC, SDA or OUT instead of long wires between distant parts.
• Draw ICs and boards with only the pins in use, and list them in the order they should appear on each side.
• Give every part a value. A diagram with “R1” and no value is half a diagram.
• Split a large circuit into blocks and make a diagram for each.
• Check the Netlist tab: every net should have the pins you expect, and none should have just one.
• Use the print theme for black-and-white documents and SVG for anything that will be scaled.