[sdiy] Free CAD (was: Proteus software)

[Dave Kendall]

I haven't seen OsmondPCB mentioned yet  - maybe I missed it.

http://www.osmondpcb.com/

It runs on a Macintosh, and there is a free trial version available (up 
to 700pins)

cheers,
Dave

On Feb 20, 2011, at 23:00, Ian Fritz wrote:

> At 02:37 PM 2/20/2011, Tim Parkhurst wrote:
>> On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Jay Schwichtenberg 
>> <jays at aracnet.com> wrote:
>> > There are a couple more things out there for the PC. TinyCAD and 
>> FreePCB. I
>> > played with them and they didn't seem all that bad and there are 
>> Yahoo
>> > groups for support.
>> >
>> > One thing that bugs me about a number of the PCB programs out there 
>> is that
>> > they work from schematics. If you want to just draw up a PCB they 
>> become a
>> > real pain. They require you to manually build a 'node list' for the 
>> board as
>> > you go.
>> >
>> > Jay S.
>> >
>>
>> Although it's a bit of a pain, that is how "real" PCB layout programs
>> work. The advantage to this is that the layout portion of the program
>> will compare the tracks you are laying out to the netlist, and will
>> not allow you to make a bad connection (i.e., one that doesn't exist
>> in the schematics). You can also run a check to make sure you haven't
>> missed any connections. It's not 100% bulletproof, but if your
>> schematic is correct, then your PCB layout should be too.
>>
>> If you're looking for a program where you can simply draw up a PCB
>> without having to go through all this, you can get great results from
>> AutoCAD or CorelDraw. The problem there is that you no longer have
>> automatic checking of PCB tracks vs. schematic/netlist.
>
> FreePCB allows you to do board layouts from scratch without 
> schematics.  It automatically makes up the netlists and gerbers, 
> allows DRCs, etc.  I do it all the time.  Am I missing something?
>
> Ian
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