[sdiy] PCB Layout Software?

[Neil Johnson]

Hi,

Donald Tillman wrote:
>>> User's needs are going to be wildly diverse, so in practice I think most people will end up building their own libraries anyway, or at least heavily modifying existing symbols and footprints, and so a universal standard library may not be the best goal.

Tom Wiltshire wrote:
>> Don makes a good point, 'though I don't agree totally. I made myself a library of "SDIY" parts that you don't find often - CA3080, SSM2164, suff like that. But having standard libraries for parts like 74HC series, voltage regulators, and that kind of thing definitely saves time. I wouldn't expect to have to make my own library for every transistor I put in a board, and I'd expect a decent PCB design package to include a good selection of standard parts in a usable form.

cheater00 wrote:
> In addition to that, it's simply not possible to model the parts
> correctly yourself for 3D renders and spatial compliance testing.

Having been caught out by errors in CAD vendors libraries I now create
my own from scratch.  You do carefully check the vendor libs against
the datasheet and the physical part don't you (in case of errors in
the datasheet)?

And I'm not talking at the cheap end either.

Neil
--
http://www.njohnson.co.uk