What PCB software are you all using? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: commie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 08:57:11 pm
content: Hi Fella'sI do alot of designing electronic systems in my workshop, some designs are good but they never make it to fruition because well, how can I put it, I hate designing pcb'sand drilling metal/plastic bashing etc.I've not had much luck or impression on auto routers either, which tend to be add on's for various pcb software packages, at great extra cost and if you do get a decent auto router it takes just as long to set up as it does to manually route the pcb.I'm currently using Sprint 5 pcb package which I find very good within its limitations but all the same it's still very taxing on the brain to do a good layout.One solution is to try and find and individual which likes designing pcb's and then I could just send my design schematic via email or post and make it a joint design/project.Are there any other ideas? If you have found a really good pcb package then tell us about it, I notice RS and Mouser are offering free packages as well anyone tried them?

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 10:10:38 pm
content: Hi Commie,Allow me to elaborate a bit on the available tools.Free tools come in the guise of RS Design Spark, which is made by the same company that make Easy PC and Pulsonix, though the files are not compatible with each other. Mouse BlueSim is National Instruments MultiSim, AKA Electronics Workbench, Ultiboard is the PCB package.Both will serve you well, I am not sure if there is an upgrade path, I know you can get Design Spark files moved across to Pulsonix as I enquired but only existing ones, everything after you get a license for Pulsonix will not be ported across as they have to do it themselves, sounds a bit faffy!Personally, I have used EAGLE for a number of years, which is a free tool from Farnell / Element 14, and there is an upgrade path if you wish.I also use Altium Designer almost daily, which seems to be the default package, or Orcad.There are plenty of other commercial packages, such as CadStar for example to choose from.Now, Circuit Maker is free, but it is cloud based file saving, so no offline files can be stored, though it creates them in a temp folder, you can't open them up locally either. Circuit Studio is a step up from Circuit Maker, also sold by Farnell / Element 14, and costs a pretty penny too, arguably better bang for buck than EAGLE, depending on who you listen to, DipTrace is another popular alternative to EAGLE and also has a upgrade plan if needed.For the past few years i've been keeping a keen eye on KiCAD, which originally was a fork from gEDA, and apparently we are imminent for a new stable release, you can download the daily builds as binary from the web page, and it really has come on leaps and bounds, so it is my new goto choice for home PCBs.It really does depend what you want to use it for, for home / hobbyist use, use KiCAD, EAGLE, DipTrace or Circuit Maker, if you are planning on running a business or using it for commercial work I would recommend either investing in a package such as Altium Designer, or Circuit Studio, or if the budget does not stretch that far, you can get good results from DipTrace and EAGLE, all are capable packages, it's just investing time into learning how they work.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 10:32:50 pm
content: I use an old copy of Altium, it's fine for my needs.However this thread captured my interest and it seems DEX could be a good option:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/dex-eval-by-free_electron/PCB software does need dedication and in particular practice and knowledge of layout principles for completion of a project in a timely manner.The community is good for bouncing designs off, there is much knowledge and experience to call on.Resist starting with a too complex project, do a few simple practice ones first, maybe "building blocks" that you can incorporate in more complex designs later.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 10:45:18 pm
content: There is a forum search field is at the top right, you might find this type of thread has come up once or twice.Anyway, me = DipTrace with FreeRouting for autorouting where desired.

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 10:58:57 pm
content: I've been usingTarget 3001in the "economy"-edition for a while. In my opinion it's the better alternative to Eagle.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2015, 11:41:02 pm
content: Diptrace is very easy to use. I would definitely download it and give it a try.BTW, I never use the auto-router. It's not for any other reason other than I always do a MUCH better job myself.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 12:11:11 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on July 18, 2015, 11:41:02 pm+1 for final design.But it can be useful when trying to envisage the finished job you want.Autoroute, delete, manual route and so on.Also for routing just 1 net.

author: funkathustra
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 12:51:25 am
content: +1 for CircuitMaker. It's cloud-based, so you get instant access to a huge library of parts, without ever having to think about library management.It's also really easy to share and collab with other people, and I love how seamless it is to fork other people's designs.It's got 95% of Altium Designer's features, while also being completely free.And you can use it for commercial designs, unlike other free packages like Eagle, which forbid it.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 01:54:04 am
content: As an Altium User, if you design can be public, it is hard to beat the free cloud solution. The software is so much better than other free and low priced options.

author: ralphd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 02:02:43 am
content: I use diptrace free version.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 02:47:18 am
content: For small scale lower cost I haven't found anything that can beat EAGLE. I even use it at work. Sure, if all you do all day is PCB and schematic layouts you'd want Altium. But at the $11K price tag it's unaffordable for most and unjustifiable.I use the EAGLE autorouter not actually for auto routing but for ideas. In other words, I normally manually route everything. However, what I've learned which speeds it up is asking to AUTO VCC or GND one at a time, grab a print out and then I know the shortest paths on those nets.I'd be very Leary of cloud packages with ALTIUM. You'd have to check the package etc, to make sure the person got it right. And then check it every time they might have changed it. No thanks for me there.

author: amc184
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 05:51:51 am
content: DipTrace is my choice. It's intuitive, and really easy to learn, yet has enough depth to keep up when you start doing more complex things. It has a free version, I'm using one of the paid ones though.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 06:28:44 am
content: Quote from: kc3ase on July 19, 2015, 02:47:18 amI use the eagle auto router on all my board. I first route manually the critical nets (~25%) and then unleash the auto router on the rest rest. Works great for my me.

author: commie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 11:09:41 am
content: Hi Guys,Thanks for all the replies, about 12 years ago I bought EASYPC V8 for around £150 limited to 1000 pins, I used this package for about 11 years and then I bought the German Sprint 5 for £40.00, the latter is really really easy to use.

author: george graves
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 11:20:32 am
content: Quote from: zapta on July 19, 2015, 06:28:44 amI'd love to see your boards.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 01:31:07 pm
content: Quote from: george graves on July 19, 2015, 11:20:32 amThe vast majority of the time, I can't even get an auto-router to find a solution, yet I usually manage to get things routed with no vias and with the vast majority of traces on one side of the board, leaving a pretty good copper pour for ground on the other side.

author: wd5gnr
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 02:59:22 pm
content: I've used a lot of commercial tools in my day job and I'm a long time Eagle user. But I have really enjoyed EasyEDA (www.easyeda.com) lately. It has a few quirks but it is: online, can be private or shared, imports libraries (and has all of KiCAD's libs), and you can get gerbers out OR they will make them for you at a good price (first set of boards en route). They claim that if they ever go under they will give you time to export and open source their code so you could host your own private instance of it (of course, who knows, but you could keep exported copies of things if you were worried). The nice thing is I can be at any computer anywhere and open my designs up. It also integrates with Spice, but with LT spice, I don't care (although they can import/export LT Spice, I think).Worth checking out.

author: commie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 03:02:53 pm
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on July 19, 2015, 01:31:07 pmThat sounds about right and logical to me, thing is, do you or anybody else etch their own boards?, say for ironing out any mistakes before sending away to a pcb manufacturer?.CheersCommie

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 03:10:25 pm
content: I'd never do that, but I do load my Gerber files into GC-Prevue before sending anything off. It's amazing how many minor bugs leap out when you look at each layer on its own.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 03:24:57 pm
content: Quote from: george graves on July 19, 2015, 11:20:32 amHere are two exampleshttps://github.com/zapta/power-monitors/blob/master/pmon_3v8/eagle/pmon_3v8_board.pdfhttps://github.com/zapta/arm/blob/master/pro-mini/board/arm-pro-mini-board.pdfThe critical nets typically include power (to the MCU, high current, etc, but doesn't include pull ups and such), USB lines and crystal oscillator.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 05:56:54 pm
content: Quote from: commie on July 19, 2015, 03:02:53 pmI didnt even breadboard the last two or three. I knew what I wanted, and I designed it. If you're working with the same kinds of architecures over and over, you start to learn to trust yourself. Of course, I reviewed the schematic multiple times, very systematically. On the one I just sent out, I had to fix a MAJOR error that would have had me cutting traces on the prototype. But I caught it early. The one before this was a motherboard sized audio testbed. No way to prototype that except to do it. No problems there either.Then I depend on the PCB tool to catch stupid mistakes routing the board. Boards are cheap enough to make that etching a prototype by hand is a waste of time and money, IMHO. I breadboard what I'm not 100% sure of, simulate blocks I'm confident with fir a sanity check, and then go for it!

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 06:52:22 pm
content: Quote from: commie on July 18, 2015, 08:57:11 pmIf you don't like / can't create a PCB layout than no package will help you. Creating a good layout is tedious work and takes a lot of planning which starts at the schematics stage. An autorouter can take away some work but I have not used an autorouter since I switched to surface mounted components. A via takes up a lot of precious board space so routing by hand can create very dense boards. And then there is the work involved in creating a bill-of-materials.Nowadays it is easy to create a case. Buy a readily made case and have new front/rear panels lasercut (you'll need to create a drawing though).

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 07:56:11 pm
content: At the moment I've been using OrCAD at work but it's a pain to use and I hate it.

author: commie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 08:35:55 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 19, 2015, 06:52:22 pmVery true, I'm beginning realize that there is no magic solution to my problem other than keep doing as I have been doing. What does surprise me about this thread, is the amount of money some people have and the risks they take are enormous.The probability of mistakes happening during the development phase are very high.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 09:00:54 pm
content: autorouters suck. I already had a very low opinion of them , but it has reached new depths.. i am going through an excercise now with the worlds best autorouter and it's like attempting to perform brain surgery, on a herd of cats, while in a rocket with the engine failing and alarms blaring ... blindfolded, in the dark , with your arms strapped to your back. while you are up to your neck cast in a block of concrete.What a total and utter useless pile of shit. They should rename it the Crapdence Shittra... instead of Cadence Specctra.i will give you an example of how insanely stupid this thing is.I place a via and a track. The track is touching the via , just not exactly in the center ( no errors, the track touches nicely under 45 degrees, teardropped. just the end does not coincide exactly with the exact center of the via , i stopped 1 micron short. well, this piece of crap considers that a non connect. ) i turns out the way this junk analyses a board is purely by coordinates. it cannot recognize shapes. and they call this a shape based router ?every single part needs to be 'escaped' that means i, yeah i , need to draw a piece of wire , manually, on every single pad on the board going to a via through the board. Otherwise the router can't connect. it can only place connections from via to via. anything surface mounted ? it can't go there. this is insane ! i'm doing blind and buried and laser via's. if the laser vi'a are not exactly placed in the center of the pad it considers this a non connect. so if i want to shoot two laser via's in a pad ( due to current requirements) , i need to connect both of them with a piece of track to the center of the pad. the via's aren't even outside the pad. so i end up with tons of little stubs of wire. now here is the kicker. some of thes epads are on a metric pitch. some imperial. during the conversion we get rounding errors. so even when things line up correctly , after file export they may be of 1f millionth of a mil ( due to rounding ) : boom the router konks out.what a useless piece of shit.

author: commie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 09:30:33 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on July 19, 2015, 09:00:54 pmHmmm...., I thought so, I've been thinking the same thing for awhile now.

author: funkathustra
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2015, 11:43:44 pm
content: I generally agree with the sentiment of this thread. I used Altium's autorouter once in my life: I had to build a giant one-off board with 15 68-pin VHDCI connectors that broke out to hundreds of screw terminals. All of the signals were essentially DC (simple digital on-off control), and none of them carried any appreciable power. I laid out all the connectors, hit "Run" and it worked. It was ridiculous. It was ugly. It was inefficient. But I had the routing finished in seconds.I don't think you buy a good software package for the auto-router; you buy a good software package because it makes hand-routing your boards fast and downright fun (for a little while, at least).Here's Zapta's auto-routed board that he advertises as indicative of the usefulness of Eagle's auto-router:When I look at that image, all I see is wacky USB routing that's surely out of spec, extremely sparse component density leading to a massive amount of wasted space, and long signal runs that will inevitably add noise to the board. I'm sure the boardworks-- but this is not a board to be proud of. And I'm not being critical to Zapta -- I don't know if I could do much better than that using such a shitty software package -- especially if I'm also forced to use the auto-router.While I don't do a lot of Arduino designs, just to compare apples to apples, this Arduino-compatible design took me about an hour to put together (schematic capture, PCB component placement, and routing) in Altium CircuitMaker:A good software package has a real-time DRC (design rule check) engine, push-and-shove routing, useful walk-around modes, follow-mouse routing, and fast keyboard shortcuts to drop vias, drop vias and switch layers, or just switch layers altogether. Pulling up traces should be as easy as laying them down, so look for automatic loop removal, and smart selection tools (select connected copper on a specific layer, select by net, etc, unroute a net, unroute a component, etc).If you design open-source hardware using Windows, there's really no reason not to use Altium CircuitMaker. It's lightyears better than every other free PCB software out there.

author: ez24
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 12:04:02 am
content: QuoteThat is why they can buy expensive tools, it makes them more money.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 12:29:35 am
content: Quote from: funkathustra on July 19, 2015, 11:43:44 pm1 As I said earlier, the USB lines was hand rooted by me, not the auto router, so are the crystal, high current power and bypass caps.2 The board size is derived from the mechanical design, regardless of component density. (There are a switch, oled display and connector that need to be at the bottom of a square enclosure)3 Trace aesthetics is not a design goal for me. I take pride if the overall design, hardware and firmware, works very well.I find the auto router to be very useful for me. YMMV.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 12:37:09 am
content: Quote from: funkathustra on July 19, 2015, 11:43:44 pmFirst, a window only open source project has less value and second altium can pull the plug on access to the design at any moment.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 12:41:14 am
content: Quote from: funkathustra on July 19, 2015, 11:43:44 pmBoy, that's the truth right there. Truthfully, I don't mind routing board. Once I get an intelligent layout done, the routing only takes a little time, and the little problems that come up are usually easy to solve. It really is kind of fun...almost like playing chess. For me, it's actually on of the more enjoyable parts of the design process. It always feels like you're completely lost in the beginning, and then things start to take shape and reveal themselves to you. When I start, it always feels like it's just going to be impossible to make everything fit. When I'm done, I look at all the room I have left over and wonder what else I can cram in there next time.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 02:37:42 am
content: Quote from: John Coloccia on July 20, 2015, 12:41:14 amVery nicely put.It is a struggle for newbies but with some practice/experience PCB layout and routing is just as you describe. For me these days it a fun challenge.Good advice is don't start with something difficult.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 02:42:29 am
content: Quote from: funkathustra on July 19, 2015, 11:43:44 pmI'm not entirely convinced a projectisopen-source if a third party can pull the plug on it at their whim.

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 02:50:38 am
content: I'm currently using KiCAD, it has certainly come in leaps and bounds recently. There's still some very odd UI inconsistencies (in whatever build I have) which are confusing and demand some patience; but once you get past that initial learning curve, I find it superbly productive -- less restrictive and ultimately faster to use than free Eagle, almost as good as Altium Designer which I use when I have access to it.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 03:34:45 am
content: Quote from: c4757p on July 20, 2015, 02:42:29 amVery good point.

author: funkathustra
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 05:28:33 am
content: These "which EDA tool is best" discussions are common on this forum, but they usually always boil down to the following conclusions:Everyone who has access to Altium Designer would never touch anything else because it's significantly better than anything else out there.Altium Designer is way too expensive for hobbyists to justify, but most electronics engineers can easily justify the price given the time savings.Eagle is cross-platform and relatively easy to learn, but it's extremely clunky and unproductive, which means it takes longer to produce the same designs as Altium.A lot of Eagle users think Eagle is reasonably good, but most of these users have never used anything else to compare.Eagle is cross-platform, which seems important to the hobbyist community, which tend to use OS X and Linux at much higher proportions than professional engineers, so most hobbyists will complain if a software package is not cross-platform. Most people who do PCB design professionally don't really care -- they just want to use the best tool out there.Eagle's free version is restricted to 1 schematic sheet, 100x80mm board size, and 2 layers. These requirements make it useless for many modern designs.Eagle's free version cannot be used commercially in any way, shape, or form. If you design an open-source board, you cannot sell it -- even if you give the design files away for free.Mentor / PADS / ORCAD are mostly used by big shops that made an investment a long time ago and don't want to migrate. No one online seems to prefer them.KiCAD is the only viable truly-free (FOSS-compliant) EDA tool. It is cross-platform, and is in the process of rapidly advancing, due to an investment by CERN that will bring it more in-line with Altium Designer (push-and-shove follow-me routing, length-tuning, etc).KiCAD is generally harder to learn than either Altium or Eagle, and the workflow is clunkier than either software package (though once you're in the PCB editor, it's much more productive than Eagle).Everyone loves that Altium released CircuitMaker for free, which incorporates about 95% of Altium's functionality, but people complain a lot about being forced to save their designs online in Altium's cloud for everyone to be able to access -- err, I mean, because they're worried about Altium pulling the plug.The things that make CircuitMaker better for hobbyists than Altium Designer are, ironically, what so many people are frustrated with: an online-only library full of hundreds of thousands of components; the ability to share and collaborate with people on designs; the ability to fork other people's projects; the ability to build a github-style project portal, with one-click open functionalities.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 05:46:09 am
content: Nice synopsis @funkathustra, but you omitted Allegro from Cadence.For what I hear, anyone that has access to Allegro from Cadence would never touch anything else because it's significantly better than anything else out there.But I never used it other than the free viewer.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 06:01:42 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 20, 2015, 05:46:09 amAnd does DEX not deserve mention also?http://kov.com/

author: MagicSmoker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 10:13:20 am
content: Quote from: tautech on July 20, 2015, 06:01:42 amHuh... DEX looks pretty good. I've been using EAGLE for the last 8 years because it was the least painful one to buy (if not learn!) for my small company at the time, but I have precious little loyalty to it since it is so... quirky, let's call it.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 11:49:07 am
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 20, 2015, 05:46:09 amThe learning curve is brick-wall steep, but well worth the effort IMHO. Full-blown Allegro has a feature set that's on another planet entirely compared to the products that get most of the discussion... probably because it's used by professional engineers rather than hobbyists who enjoy posting on the internet, IMHO.FWIW, Orcad PCB Designer is the same binary, but with the advanced (and, for individuals doing 'ordinary' PCBs, largely irrelevant) features removed. It comes in 'Standard' and 'Professional' editions, and even the Standard version has all the features I need to make a living designing electronics.I don't really know why it doesn't get discussed more often. It's dramatically cheaper than Altium, or PADS, or Expedition, and yet it's totally unrestricted in terms of board size, connections, and layer count. If you outgrow the basic package, you can upgrade from Standard to Professional, and from Professional to Allegro.

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 11:57:55 am
content: Proteus

author: wd5gnr
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 12:53:57 pm
content: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_EDA_software

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 01:14:20 pm
content: CircuitMaker required the step to the cloud. Which is a big new scary place for most people. Office365 using SkyDrive and Google Docs also require that step. They weren't very popular on first release year either.Commercially it also requires trusting another company with a lot of your intellectual property, and with providing exclusive access to your intellectual property. The second isn't the case with regular cloud file sharing/versions hosts such as dropbox and github.All people tend resist using new tools if you can work with the old tools. All people will defend their choice if they believe it's a good choice. (that is why these topics work so well)Privately I'm using Eagle.Commercially we use(d) NI MultiFail and UltiFlop.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 01:20:49 pm
content: Proteus 8 (ARES). Got a licence from college, and it seems it'll be a long time til I outgrow it.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 01:34:22 pm
content: Quote from: miguelvp on July 20, 2015, 05:46:09 amI currently use OrCAD/Allegro at work and would say the oppose it is the case. It's a total nightmare to use. The UI is like something straight for the 90s. Simple tasks are a pain to accomplish and generating artwork is very laborious. The thing which annoyed me most recently is when creating the silk screen layer, it insists on rotating all component idents to the nearest 90 degrees - total rubbish!

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 01:43:22 pm
content: Allegro is enormously capable, but not enormously friendly.It sounds like you're using Autosilk, which I used once and then promptly dismissed as being an unnecessary extra step. Do your own ref des placement and you can put them at whatever angle you like.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 02:21:59 pm
content: Quote from: Jeroen3 on July 20, 2015, 01:14:20 pmThere is one big difference. CM doesn't allow to export the files and keep using them independently of the servers. You are locked in by design.

author: Throy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 03:41:38 pm
content: I'm using Target 3001 at work. It feels rather clunky and not very user friendly. At my previous work we had used Multisim and Ultiboard which I had liked.

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 03:50:23 pm
content: DipTrace if budget is limited, Altium otherwise.Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2015, 08:35:33 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on July 20, 2015, 04:07:57 amOpen source is about ability to access, use and modify source files.PDF and gerbers are not source files.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2015, 05:39:43 am
content: Quote from: Throy on July 20, 2015, 03:41:38 pmWhat version? Please tell me.

author: Throy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2015, 05:56:24 am
content: Quote from: Jeroen3 on July 21, 2015, 05:39:43 amI can't remember the version number. I'm guessing either 10 or 11. I had used it from 2009 till 2011. I'm not saying it's the best out there, but compared to Target, I find it a lot easier to use.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2015, 08:43:55 pm
content: FWIW, I decided to give KiCad a good look.a) there's a stable version that's "old", and they suggest you don't use it. On the other hand, the new builds are apparently hit or miss unstable or reasonable, and there's no guidance which of the zillion versions you should download...I just took the latest.b) when you start, you click on help and get a file not found errorc) when I started trying to make a schematic, every other operation I tried would complain about some file or other not found. Regardless, it still seemed to work. I probably just didn't prepare the schematic properly and it's all angry at me.d) Where are the parts? I couldn't even find a resistor.That's where I gave up and uninstalled it. Yeah, I'm sure there are packages I'm missing, maybe I happened to get a crappy build, or whatever, but the entire effort appears very amateurish and unorganized to me. It's probably a fine package, but I have a feeling that my experience is not unique and that lots of people simply give up before ever even getting a resistor on a schematic.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2015, 08:45:55 pm
content: Interesting, the "semi-official" Windows buildshereinstalled the libraries correctly the last time I tried them. Which system are you on?Edit: apparently they disappeared. I'm discussing this a bit now, hopefully we can get this fixed... also trying to stir up some discussion about the silly error messages, which the head honcho devs up until now have been okay with

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2015, 09:32:55 pm
content: Quote from: c4757p on July 25, 2015, 08:45:55 pmI installed the 7-24 build for x86_64. I'm on a 64 bit Windows 7 machine. It probably did install everything correctly, and I just don't know how to use it, but this is the first package that I couldn't even figure out how to get a resistor on the schematic after 20 minutes.I wanted to try it because every time I look at something like KiCad...or Altium....or Eagle...or really, almost any other package other than the Diptrace package I actually use, the look seems so much easier on the eyes than Diptrace. Very clean, very professional. Diptrace just looks and feels very amateurish, though the user interaction is actually pretty well thought out. I just can't stand looking at it.So every couple of months, I decide to give something else a try. Maybe I'll try it again when they have something stablized. So far, though, Diptrace's interaction is really the best I've tried. I really wish I could have that combined with better interface elements and features.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2015, 09:36:37 pm
content: If you still want to give it a try, for now - create a new project before you open the schematic. It looks like it wants to start the project by default in a stupid place which causes some bugs. Start a new project, and pick a sensible place to save it, and then everything works.Otherwise, I can't say your comments are unfair.

author: John Coloccia
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2015, 10:37:57 pm
content: Quote from: c4757p on July 25, 2015, 09:36:37 pmI'll reinstall it and give it a try. Thanks!

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2015, 10:58:44 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on July 20, 2015, 01:34:22 pmAllegro is immensely powerful. Generating artwork is very simple. I don't see the problem.I also don't see why you have a "90 degree" problem, simply set the rotation angle to 0 in options and you are free to rotate at any angle, although you can type in the box, I use 5 degrees. There's no point in having arbitrary precision angles.Don't forget to skip the UI as much as possible and create your own batch file to create the final output. There are many little helper .exe commands for this.Just go to %cdsroot%\tools\pcb\bin\ and do a dir *exethen just play around with these commands, -help gets you the help.artwork.exe is the one you want.You wanna complain about a layout software? Try SciCards Encore. Then get back to me.

author: MyElectronsFellOut
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2015, 02:17:52 pm
content: I've used Eagle in the past. But right now, I'm doing alot of work in Designspark. It's fairly goof for what I need, nothing fancy. The auto placer and router is humorous to say the least. Needless to say, I've become quite decent at PCB layout and planning routes in my head and working with space constraints.I have been stung a few times by dodgy library parts where I didn't check the pin out for something like a mosfet etc. Rule one, if you didn't create it.. make sure you check it! The ATmega2560 I used initially had several pins labelled incorrectly. Luckily I checked it was correct before ordering PCBs..