[sdiy] PCB/Schematic software

[Tristan]

About a year ago I looked into this issue and in the end also went with Eagle Professional Layout + 
Schematic. I wanted similar functionality to the old Protel Schematic + PCB I had used in the past and the 
cross platform Win/Mac/Linux compatibility of Eagle was a bonus. Two other important considerations were 
that Eagle is widely accepted by board houses and the company has been in business a long time with a 
solid support presence. 

In use I have found Eagle to be reliable and I have not struck any major bugs or instability. On the 
negative side, I found it has a fair learning curve (but I guess most CAD tools do!) and some operations 
are not very intuitive. The supplied libraries are also a bit messy and inconsistent.

/Tristan 


On Thu, Sep 1st, 2011 at 6:42 AM, Matthew Smith <matt at smiffytech.com> wrote:

> Quoth Harry Bissell at 01/09/11 04:29...
> ...
> > What does anyone like these days ?
> 
> When this was discussed last - which I think is when Neil drew up that 
> list - I did a quick re-evaluation. My first criterion was that the 
> package had to run on Linux, as I'm an all-Linux shop, here.
> 
> I had been using Eagle for quite some time and had upgraded from the 
> freeware to the not-for-profit paid version, in order to get a bit more 
> board space to work with. But that license was strictly non-commercial. 
> I needed something where there would be no license restrictions 
> regarding selling stuff created with the package.
> 
> My third key requirement was that everything would go through schematic 
> capture - there is no way in the world that I would consider laying out 
> a boar directly.
> 
> At the time, I was looking for Spice integration, but I still haven't 
> gotten round to using that - I'd far rather build something and test it 
> than sit staring at a computer screen (which I do all day anyway) 
> fiddling with simulations.
> 
> My shortlist came down to Eagle Pro, Kicad and GeDA/PCB.
> 
> After a quick look at Kicad, I decided that it simply wasn't for me - 
> didn't suit the way I work/think.
> 
> Next off the block was GeDA/PCB. Whilst I wasn't impressed by the 
> integration of the tools, I realised the sheer power of it and knew I 
> could script a lot of tasks. The two real issues it presented were 1) 
> learning curve and 2) no reliable way to turn my rather large Eagle 
> components library into the GeDA/PCB format.
> 
> I thought about this for a few months and finally worked out that 
> forking out a grand for Eagle Pro would actually be cheaper, when 
> considered in a commercial context, than having to learn a totally new 
> package and then convert a lot of previous work over to the new format. 
>   As I'm not *that* happy with parting with my money - even when the 
> "me" is "my business," I got onto my distributor - Element14 - and, 
> after some negotiation, secured what I thought was a pretty good discount.
> 
> So, now I am running Eagle Pro (schematic capture and board layout only 
> - no auto-router) and am happy with that. The effort of changing was 
> simply a case of adding a new license file - no learning, no conversions.
> 
> As regards Spice integration, I believe there may be a ULP (User 
> Language Programme) or two that will export netlists in a form that can 
> be read by/imported into Spice software. But I haven't tried to do it.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> M
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Smith
> 
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