[sdiy] Pulsonix PCB design software

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

On Jul 26, 2017, at 4:08 PM, electronicpresskit <electronicpresskit at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 26, 2017, at 10:06 PM, sleepy_dog at gmx.de wrote:
>> epk wrote:
>>> fwiw, I first used Eagle, then tried diptrace which was worlds easier, then learned Kicad with the help of a friend. I got frustrated with the updates breaking things and the issues with defining paths, so went back to diptrace for a couple projects. Diptrace is really nice but ultimately there were more tedious workflow issues and getting things done was simply slower.
>> 
>> - Diptrace -
>> Yeah. I am using diptrace for some time now. Most aspects of how it work seem quite sensible and consistent, and all the little things at least do things smart enough to not cause unnecessary clicking etc.
>> But there are parts where I thought, WTF do they do it that way.
>> It get's on my nerves that they make a distinction between "a selected item" and a "group of items". Aaaargh, 1 item is a group of size 1, you fools!
>> If I select a bunch of items, and want to do something to them that all of them support, I have to click "do X with selected items", if I click the regular command, it does that only to one of all the selected. To which one of them? Beats me. It can be inferred that I want to do things to more than one item - which is why I bloody selected them. Insanity!
>> The copper pour sometimes does really funny things which need working around... (sometimes fixable by altering settings)
>> 
>> Could you mention what kinds of things cause more tedious work in Diptrace for you?
>> I'm quite sure I encountered them as well, but I'd like to know exactly, to have a better idea of the other things and programs you yell me about.
> 
> One thing that irked me was that the user can change the part number of a multi-part package, however the pin numbers don’t update to reflect the change. So the user must delete the part and create a new one. This would be less of a problem, except that the wires disappear so you need to remember all the connections. I like to optimize which opamp I use depending on adjacent components when placing parts on a board so it can really add some time and increases the chance of error.

Eagle has both a 'replace' function, to change entire parts at the package level, and a 'pinswap' function, to swap individual gates, op-amps, or other equivalent parts within a single package. It's a really quick operation, allowing you to create the schematic without care for how the parts fall into packages, and then during layout decide to juggle things around to make a better PCB. If you're careful, the fact that it's a 'swap' operation makes it possible to go twice as fast.

I'm still running an Eagle license that won't expire (7.6.0), and I'm not keen on changing to a subscription model unless I somehow end up doing nothing but layout (not likely when design and firmware represent much of the fun). There are businesses who do exclusive layout work, but they typically use much more expensive software tools (although they sometimes need to use Eagle anyway if a client hand them files in that format).

Brian