New query for low cost PCB CAD that *works*

[Andrzej XTC]

I know what You mean...
but at home I'm limited to linux solutions (because of my own choice)
so I could only compare it to eagle and gEDA.
My plan is to get familiar with KiCAD as I see that it's quite easy
and meets my needs. Later I'll try to look into gEDA.
I'm not convinced about eagle since form me it looks like...
let's say - I don't know if anybody remember "Workbench" simulator...
for me it looked like a toy compared to PSpice and even MicroCAP and so
is with eagle - it looks like this software don't want to drop
some sort of childish look and style. So even if it has more complex
features (to name one for example - matrix of clearnances in DRC vs. one
global parameter in kicad)- I'm affraid I don't buy it.


XTC

 

[Ian Bell]

Andrzej XTC wrote:

What are you talking about?

Mayba I said it in wrong way - it's "read only" for me
since I don't have yaho id and I don't want to have one
giving im my visa details to some "parental control" or else.

When did they introduce that? I never had to give any such details.

Ian

 

[Andrzej XTC]

I've tried to signup yesterday.
I've had yahoo_id once but I believe it expired
because it was long long ago.

XTC

 

[Ian Bell]

Andrzej XTC wrote:

I've tried to signup yesterday.
I've had yahoo_id once but I believe it expired
because it was long long ago.

XTC

I just went to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and signed up under a new name and I
was not asked for any credit card details. I don't see what the problem is.

Ian

 

[Andrzej XTC]

I just went to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and signed up under a new name and I
was not asked for any credit card details. I don't see what the problem is.

In fact - You are right!
Yesterday I've tried to register by kicad homepage > group > join group

signup and I HAD those visa questions...

Today from other machine - everything is ok - no visa questions...
I swear it was there yesterday - maybe in my home network there was some
DNS spoof or antyhing else. To be honest - I don't know how could it be.

XTC

 

[Ian Bell]

Andrzej XTC wrote:

I just went to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and signed up under a new name
and I was not asked for any credit card details. I don't see what the
problem is.

In fact - You are right!
Yesterday I've tried to register by kicad homepage > group > join group
signup and I HAD those visa questions...

Today from other machine - everything is ok - no visa questions...
I swear it was there yesterday - maybe in my home network there was some
DNS spoof or antyhing else. To be honest - I don't know how could it be.

XTC

No problem. I have just approved your membership to the group (I am the
group moderator). Welcome to Kicad ;-)

Ian

 

[JosephKK]

Anton Erasmus wrote:

On Sat, 03 Dec 2005 20:21:57 +0000, Ian Bell <ruffrecords@yahoo.com
wrote:

Andy Peters wrote:

Ian Bell wrote:

OK, I checked with my old colleague. The one we chose but then went off
was Veribest. The one we changed to was Protel.

Veribest was later renamed Mentor Expedition PCB.

It's remarkably powerful, but at the cost of intensive training. It's
probably overkill if you're not doing packed boards with 0402 passives,
BGAs on both sides, and 24 layers of impedance-matched traces.

I find Protel DXP and PCAD to both be very workable, although their
notions of libraries and design rules and other major features are very
different. Neither is inexpensive.

Depends on your definition of expensive, but relative to Veribest, Protel
was cheap.


When Protel first came out it was very cheap. Once it became popular
the price went up dramatically, and the quality of their support shot
down. It is extremely clear that the current programmers on Protel,
have never used the program to do a real design. They have added
all sorts of fluff that slows everything down, and they keep trying to
forcefeed their idea of how one should organise one's design files.

Regards
Anton Erasmus
Aye, it happens often when sales people (and "professional" management) take

over product design/specification. And the original developers move on.
--
JosephKK

 

[Paul Urbanus]

Robert Baer wrote:

Do not mention Eagle, i wasted a lot of time on POTS to download the
demo version, and again, it was totally useless.
And i was unable to figure out what files wer needed to make the DOS
Orcad even run - so that is out.
PCB123 is out, because the manual is worse than obscene - unreadable
(Acrobat sez it is corrupted and cannot fix it).
So what is left?

I purchased RimuPCB, and found it to be the most intuitive PCB layout
package I ever tried to use. I was productive almost immediately, and
finished a 4-layer surface mount design.

There was *ONE SMALL* problem - the gerbers for the inner (plane) layers
weren't generated properly. I sent an email to the developer, along with
my files, and a fixed version was available in less than 8 hours.

Some features:

o Components can be built once, then used on either side of board.
Mirroring is automatic.
o Import graphic to be placed on PCB - good for logos
o One limitation to this package is 4 copper layers.
o Low price - $72

IMO, this package is well worth your time to evaluate. Negative on this
is that eval version can't save. But, I think the ease of use is so
obvious with the non-save version.

NOT affiliated with Hutson Systems in any way - just liked using their
product.



Urbite


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