PCB tools

Hi, I'm looking at an open-source PCB tool and I'd like to hear if
anyone else has used it. I'm planning on doing a board with
power/ground planes and 1.0 mm BGA's.


Anybody tried the tool with / without a board like that?
The tool is at:


http://www.freepcb.com/


Thanks,
Chris

 

[Ingo Cyliax]

In article <1102702074.540041.152730@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
<info@bostonsemiconductor.com> wrote:

Hi, I'm looking at an open-source PCB tool and I'd like to hear if
anyone else has used it. I'm planning on doing a board with
power/ground planes and 1.0 mm BGA's.


Anybody tried the tool with / without a board like that?
The tool is at:


http://www.freepcb.com/

I have not used freepcb.com, it looks nice. I have been using PCB for
layout for years for layout and have recently started using gEDA for
schematics capture, which seems to work nicely. I have also used
Xcircuit, which is good for drawing schematics, but little awkward for
doing design. All under Linux. These tools can probably be build for
Windows using Cygwin, but I haven't tried. Well, I know PCB can be
build.

PCB works well for thruhole and SMT parts. I have not done BGA with it,
but don't see a reason that it wouldn't work, if you generate the
appropriate footprints. I have generated many real 2-4 boards with it,
without serious problems, that weren't operator error.

See ya, -ingo
--
/* Ingo Cyliax, cyliax@ezcomm.com, Tel: 812-391-0895 */

 

Thanks for the input. I've been using gEDA for schematic capture also.
I've been using a rather old Windows port of it, but it works quite
well so I haven't upgraded.

I have considered PCB, but am unfortunately bound to a windows platform
for a variety of hard to justify reasons. Not being versed in Cygwin
ports, I haven't made the effort. The FreePCB tool is a native windows
application.

Anybody out there done a Cygwin port of PCB that can shed some light on
how easy/hard it is to do?

 

[Mac]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 06:48:18 -0800, info wrote:

Thanks for the input. I've been using gEDA for schematic capture also.
I've been using a rather old Windows port of it, but it works quite
well so I haven't upgraded.

I have considered PCB, but am unfortunately bound to a windows platform
for a variety of hard to justify reasons. Not being versed in Cygwin
ports, I haven't made the effort. The FreePCB tool is a native windows
application.

Anybody out there done a Cygwin port of PCB that can shed some light on
how easy/hard it is to do?

I believe PCB is reasonably well-supported under cygwin. I know I have it
running. I believe I built it from source, with no patches or anything,
but I have fairly recent versions of cygwin and PCB. (Less than a year
old, I think). It couldn't hurt you to try building PCB. If it won't
build, just delete the whole build directory and move on.

I haven't put cygwin-PCB through its paces, but I did verify that it
started up and could read a few layouts and so on.

HTH

--Mac