|
I gave up on Eagle and instead went to Kicad.
Kicad seems to work much easier -- for me.
I had never used a CAD type of program before and Kicad got me all the way to a complete PCB which I sent to oshkosh and had manufactured.
try it, it's free: KiCad EDA - Schematic Capture & PCB Design Software[^]
|
|
|
|
|
Sweet, nice to hear about a fellow Kicad user! I haven't designed a full board yet, but am toying with it. It's nice!
What was your project? Any links?
|
|
|
|
|
Mine is a device which monitors room temperature, saves to SD card if chosen (button pressed or selected via bluetooth) and will report info back over bluetooth.
Here's an older tweet (ala twitter) that shows the schematic: https://twitter.com/raddevus/status/1428800395627876359[^]
The device has an oled screen, bluetooth module, tmp36 (for getting temperature), uses an atmega4809 and has a realtime clock -- so you can know temp at specific times.
|
|
|
|
|
Sweet project! I've been meaning to make one of these myself for my garage. You selling these?
|
|
|
|
|
I agree,
I used Eagle for several projects, and found it to restrictive for small projects (Understand they want to sell it to you) but the free version changed when sold to another company
I also tried DesignSpark it works but has stalled on development and seemed awkward to use
I started using KiCad several years ago and it seems to work well with no restrictions
If you are just doing schematics (electronic) it should be good for you
|
|
|
|
|
I absolutely agree. I have already used KiCad for several professional project and every time I obtained a perfect PCB at the first attempt - which was not always the case when I used Eagle.
I admit that initially the name KiCad made me think of a hobby-oriented software, but KiCad is much more than that (its development was supported by CERN, and now it is a really powerful CAD).
|
|
|
|
|
This one is 3D but you can omit the Z axis and draw semantics
IT is FREE to use online I use it to model woodworking models
Trimble Identity[^]
|
|
|
|
|
It would need to be able to load common electronics component models, including schematics. Most 3D cad programs can't do schematics, and then routing based on that.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
|
|
|
|
|
I haven't tried DesignSpark, but some like it.
An other possibility(s) is the software from the board house. I used ExpressPCB several years back - poor software but simple for the small thing I was doing - their 3 boards 2" x 3" deal worked for me. ( But I only needed 7 LEDs, terminal strips and stuff, no logic ICs. ) ( Also, I needed to have the board match the enclosure top ( a Rose & Bopla cast Al box - you need an HMI for 6 spindle multiples? IR, Bosch, Copco... ? ) so some component placement was dictated by panel design. )
There's at least 2 other places with their own software and I expect the software has gotten better.
Better than breadboards, ( Oh, I really like my Hakko iron. And the PanaVise. )
Have fun.
dave
|
|
|
|
|
[^] KiCad is free and brilliant.
|
|
|
|
|
I battled with Eagle, but gave up, tried using KiCAD better than Eagle, however it seems to be getting closer to Altium. There is was(?) a PCB designer called ProTel which was one of the parents of Altium, not too sure if it got abandoned but I found it online for a very low (cheap) price. Not too sure if all the latest foot prints are available though. 
|
|
|
|
|
honey the codewitch wrote: I've been wrestling with EAGLE trying to build a schematic, and whoever designed it broke every possible rule of good UI design
Give it a try to KiCAD. After 25 years far from electrical diagrams and their related PCBs, it was enough for me to use it for a few days to create a complete project, starting from the electric diagram to Gerber and drilling files. As far as I know, people at CERN are heavily involved in the development and maintenance of this EDA tool. Which is free. A native auto router is missing, but AFAIK you can export the netlist to other free tools to re-import the auto-routing design to KiCad.
|
|
|
|
|
Have you ever tried using Solidworks? It’s appalling from a UI point of view. I think a different team implemented each function without any holistic view of how it will all go together. The number of inconsistencies would probably get me banned for spamming if I listed them all!
|
|
|
|
|
I'll put in another plug for KiCAD. I used Cadence stuff professionally before retiring, but now I only do occasional contracts and homers, it's not worth buying stuff. KiCAD is pretty good - pity I can't import my libraries from work, tho'!
|
|
|
|
|
One other note about Kicad, it will import Eagle designs! I've tried it and it's not too bad of an import.
|
|
|
|
|
I haven't used it too much, but you could give TinkerCad a try. Might be too basic for you tho.
TinkerCad[^]
|
|
|
|
|
CADdyi by Microsoft
A free CAD software with premium features for the maker!
*If someone uses this name, you owe me money.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
|
|
|
|
|
This this right here. This is the reason I kept an old version of Visio from before they went all webby etc...
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
|
|
|
|
|
MS was good at creating visual designers. That was back in the days of Alan Cooper and his peers at Microsoft. Today, not so much. After several years of Xamarin, they still can't figure out how to make a XAML designer that supports Xamarin XAML. Now with MAUI and Blazor (HTML/CSS), no visual designer.
MS has lost their edge in understanding the value-add of rapid application design (RAD). They settle for syntactic sugar updates of little value to C#. Honestly, I am not sure there is anyone in MS' developer tools division that knows what value engineering is, and how it relates to making tools that advance RAD.
|
|
|
|
|
Fair. I've been so immersed in C++ and IoT things, and before that, console based code generators that I haven't paid much attention to the goings on at MS as of late.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
|
|
|
|
|
Agreed. As long as MS continue to support it after I've clawed my way up the learning curve.
I use Fusion 360 with a hobbyist license. It's getting much better with each release, but they keep moving features out of the free license into the paid license. Also, some of the folks that pay are complaining that you now have to pay for some of the analysis features as a service. Most of the analysis tools used to run locally.
I used Blender in the past but switched to Fusion360 for the drawing and drafting features, but Blender now has more engineering features. I may switch back if Fusion360 continues to paywall more features.
Sad, though, since the learning curve for Fusion360 is so steep.
|
|
|
|
|
Actually, Microsoft bought Visio back in 2000 (I think) and then merged it into their system. I'd used pre-Microsoft versions of Visio but never bothered with the Microsoft version since my usage was rather infrequent.
|
|
|
|
|
They also bought VBA from Summit
But they improved on those things.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
|
|
|
|
|
EAGLE 7 was the last best version, after Autodesk took it on they butchered the licensing and made the software almost impossible to use offline. I would recommend KICAD, bit of a learning curve but worth it, another popular one is EASYEDA.
|
|
|
|
|
My first post. And LMMFAO, Microsoft creating CAD software???!!!???!!! Oh hell no!
Microsoft would end up with a product that would be bloated beyond the worst bloated ROMs for Android devices ending with the BSOD.
We are in desperate need of high-end engineering/analysis software for Linux. I don't care about the flavor of said Linux distro, just a rewrite of SolidWorks. Is this asking too much???!!!???!!!???!!!
Before anyone types/posts, I'm very much aware of the amount of work that goes into developing software especially high-end parametric modelers and optimization/analysis stuff...
~jp
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
