Electronic – convention for lines separating areas in circuit diagrams

best practicediagramdrawing

I often see boxes of various styles to separate areas and increase clarity in circuit diagrams. I'm wondering if there is a line style convention in circuit diagrams for illustrating:

  • A set of parts located in a particular part of the board? (Such as a high-voltage area)
  • An optional sub-circuit that may (or may not) be installed.

such as short dash, long dash, long-short dash etc….

If there is none, I guess I should just choose something clear and stick to it consistently. In engineering/ technical drawings they are quite exact about this kind of thing, but I haven't come across anything in electronics.

Best Answer

NEMA has some guidelines for electrical schematics:

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There are other options besides dashed lines- especially in the modern era. We can use colors, filled boxes of various shapes and colors with various types of borders etc. Absent a relevant set of standards, I think it's best to just make it obvious and simple, not too ugly, and annotate it as Ignacio comments.

Try to to make it difficult to confuse with the boxes that are used in hierarchical schematics or with component symbols that may show internal circuitry.

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