Any suggestions on circuit design software? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: UltraTrunks
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2014, 07:06:10 pm
content: I'm fairly new to the EEVblog (maybe a month in). I've decided to stop "spot" watching episodes, and am committed to watching them all from beginning to end. I've already got 50 in this weekIts great stuff and its totally revived my creative bug back from my EE days in college. I have few questions on what kinds of design software packages people are using to design/fab/test circuits. One example I've seen in the episode titles is "KiCad". Looks like a PCB layout tool. Reminds of my CADENCE days in digital design. I haven't gotten to these episodes yet, but I'm definitely going to take a poke at KiCad.What is the application that Dave used to make that spinning 3D board in the intro to some of his early videos? I like that, its pretty cool.I remember using SPICE in school to draw out circuit schematics and test them. Whats the crowd favorite nowadays?I've already mentioned KiCad as a PCB layout tool. Any comments on that? Is there anything else out there worth a look?Are there any packages that can do it all? Lay out circuit diagram, simulate circuit, layout PCBs so fabs can make your custom board? Sometimes when a product tires to do everything it ends up doing nothing very well, but it would be convient if there was a suite out there that hit all the bases.

author: alimirjamali
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2014, 07:17:55 pm
content: 1. Dave used (and still uses) Altium designer. He worked for the same company in the past.2. Dave has a video of LT-Spice (Freeware). Other open source alternatives are available. Check alternativesto.net3. Dave's co-host of TheAmpHour (PodCast) Chris Gammell has a great series of KiCad training videos in his Contextual Electronics youtube page. Highly recommended. Also take a look into 3 short training videos of EAGLE by Jeremy Blum. EAGLE has a free version and many open source hardware (e.g. Arduino) are designed in EAGLE.4. That is a controversial question which I won't answer.

author: RiverTown
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2014, 07:23:58 pm
content: 1. Altium Designer2.LTspice3. You should take a look PCB/EDA Design section, there is plenty information about different PCB softwares.4. Yes, they are few but I don't think that one-in-one-package is best solution. Dedicated software for each section will probably be superior.EDIT: almir was faster...

author: CoilKid
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2014, 09:16:37 pm
content: I rather like the Eagle freeware, but I haven't tried a bunch of them.http://www.cadsoftusa.com/download-eagle/freeware/?language=en

author: laptopmd
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 27, 2014, 11:20:44 pm
content: No one mentioned DipTrace, why ?

author: angst7
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2014, 11:32:27 pm
content: 1. Already answered.2. I agree that LTSpice is the best free simulation tool.3. I'm a GEDA user, but KiCAD is getting alot of chatter these days.4. The GEDA suite is the only open source suite that I'm aware of to do all of this. There are commercial packages that do it as well. That said, even though I use GEDA for capture and layout, I use LTSpice for simulation.