another new article

src/content/blog/schematics-should-show-intent-rather-than-reailty.md

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+---
+title: 'schematics should show intent rather than reailty'
+description: |
+    when people send me schematics for review, I occasionally see seemingly random connectors with no description or notes for what they are used for. Therefor this article covers how to change your schematic to be more readable at a glance.
+pubDate: '23 May 2026'
+heroImage: '../../assets/article_hero_images/ray_tracer.png'
+---
+
+When reviewing schematics I will tend to find that people have designed their schematics to directly reflect the reality of what they are building.
+This is not a *bad* thing per say, however this can and does cause information about the circuit to be lost.
+This in turn means when reviewing the schematic the reviewer can not tell if what you are planning to implement and can not therefor give adequate feedback.
+So to solve this problem the schematic that you create should show your intent of what goes there rather than what is actually there.
+For example a common act that causes confusion is something like this:
+
+![alt text](/schmatic_rant/example_of_poor_design.png)
+
+Here the user has connected a connector with a current limiting resistor to a pin of their microcontroller.
+When looking at this the first thing I ask is "*what is going on that connector*", most of the time it will just be a button.
+And if it is just a button then I may suggest to the user to add a capacitor for debouching so they don't have to implement it in code.
+However, this could also be a switch and then that suggestion would be useless.
+Furthermore, this could even be a connector to an LED that they are sinking through the microcontroller.
+So as you can see that just having a single connector to say something is going to go here does not give the reviewer enough information to make an informed decision.
+Therefor my suggestion is to make the schematic reflect your intention instead.
+So if you are planning on using a switch then just replace the connector symbol with a switch instead as shown:
+![alt text](/schmatic_rant/example_of_better_design.png)
+
+Or if its a button then use a button symbol or an led symbol if its an LED.
+Then just keep the footprint the same as the connector before.
+However i would add that this still isnt clear enough as this now implies that this switch is on the PCB itself.
+This now contrast with the pervious symbol as it showed there was something going off board.
+You could fix this by adding a note next to the switch as can be seen below or even moving the wires and adding a box around it to show it's off the PCB. 
+![alt text](/schmatic_rant/example_of_better_design_with_label.png)
+![alt text](/schmatic_rant/example_of_better_design_with_label_and_box.png)
+
+Although these fixes now reflect your intent on the PCB they don't truly reflect the reality of your PCB.
+I know ive just been going on about how your schematic show should the intent of what your doing not the reality.
+However, the best way to show your intent is to show the exact reality of how It's going to be implemented.
+Therefor, you can instead implement the switch like what is seen below, with both the connector on the board the connector off the board and the switch itself.
+![alt text](/schmatic_rant/example_of_best_implemention.png)
+This now show both your intention behind the design and the exact reality of the design itself. 
+Additionally, this implemention also give the extra benefit of automatically including these items in the BOM of your PCB.
+Lastly make sure to give these parts the attributes of `exclude from board` and `exclude from position files`.
+These attributes make it, so these parts don't need footprints as well as do not need to be routed on the PCB.  
+![alt text](/schmatic_rant/boxes_to_check.png)
+
+To conclude you should attempt to show the whole reality of your design rather than just the parts that sit on the PCB.