PCB design - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Munyua44
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 08:44:42 am
content: Hello! Am a newbie here and a beginner in electronic PCB design. I really want to know the best EDA software for beginners.thanks!

author: KT88
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 09:05:45 am
content: Welcome.My recommendation would be Kicad, if you are willing to accept a quite steep learning curve in the beginning.Reason: It has become a de facto standard with a huge amount of tutorials and contributors. A lot of board members use it - this would make it very easy to reviw your work if you have questions...CheersAndreas

author: NorthernWing
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 12:45:30 pm
content: I exclusively use DipTrace at this point - I've found the user interface and component/library creation to be massively more user-friendly than most of the other packages, and at the end of the day I can take a design from schematic to completion faster with it than I can with KiCad.My only recommendation over DipTrace would be Altium Designer, but for personal use there's no way to justify the price of a perpetual license.

author: MarkF
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 05:16:00 pm
content: +1 for everythingNorthernWingsaid.I've been using Diptrace for many years now. It is extremely intuitive to learn. I seem to remember that I was able to install Diptrace and complete my first PCB in an afternoon.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2022, 06:04:47 pm
content: Let’s start by: Define best.I am not attempting to be pedantic, but everyone’s priorities and skills will be different.You will be given a dozen different responses, all of them correct.Thus with this particular observation, my opinion, which will be different from many other posters. Thus…If your LONG TERM goal is to learn PC board layout professionally, to be able to sell your knowledge to corporate accounts, then Altium is the one to go to.I am no Altium fanboy, but the job offers I have seen mostly require Altium knowledge.

author: twospoons
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 01:05:57 am
content: I use Kicad for personal projects and Altium professionally. I've also used Eagle (and hated it - free version is too limited and I find the UI awful).For a beginner I'd lean towards Kicad - free, no limits, active support community.Best thing to do is try a few of the free options - see which one feels good to you. Once you are familiar with the process of PCB design its reasonably easy to transition between EDA suites.

author: rpiloverbd
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2022, 08:33:51 am
content: I started with proteus and still use it. I find proteus easier than many. The only problem is that it is a paid software. However, free version is available too. Here is a proteus tutorial that you may find helpful:https://www.pcbway.com/blog/PCB_Design_Tutorial/How_to_Design_PCB_in_Proteus_1.html

author: Capernicus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2022, 01:01:44 pm
content: Ol' Dave uses Altium its pretty nice I bet.