[sdiy] Schematics Software

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

I recommend Eagle. It is supported directly by many PCB fab houses, and that's quite an advantage. I learned Eagle when the free version was perhaps more capable, and I eventually purchased a full license. I'm not sure how the free version stacks up against the competition these days, but I still think Eagle is worth learning.

Tom has a great point: It might be quicker to learn the tool you have. All of these CAD programs take time to learn. If you jump around, you won't have the advantage of deep learning on any one of them. Whichever one you choose, though, be sure to learn as much as you can and take advantage of the various communities around the tools, such as the CADSoft and Element14 sites for Eagle.

By the way, the stock Eagle libraries have two different symbols for resistors (and capacitors), calling them European and US. I use the box symbols for 0-Ohm jumpers and other option jumpers, while I use the zig-zag symbol for "real" resistors. Both symbols are attached to the same package footprints, so the layout is not affected by the difference - just the schematic printout. I find that it makes more sense to me to see an empty rectangle any time I'm looking at an option jumper, even if it is populated during assembly by a 0-Ohm resistor. The zig-zag only appears in the schematic where there is an actual V=IR equation to solve. I've also build my own devices, packages, and symbols in Eagle. The synth world has lots of interesting and unique parts like OTA (although I believe Eagle already has OTA devices in the standard libraries, or at least in the community libraries that can be downloaded).

Brian


On May 19, 2017, at 11:41 AM, Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
> What's wrong with the Diptrace schematics? (Personally, I find them pretty good). You could tweak the symbols or colours to get them more how you like them, couldn't you?
> 
> It seems to me it'd be a lot quicker to make what you've got better, rather than start again with something else.
> 
> Tom
> 
> On 19 May 2017, at 19:18, Quincas Moreira <quincas at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello friends,
>> 
>> I need to make a nice looking schematics for the build doc for a module kit. I have diptrace but I don't really like the way the schematics end up looking. Normally I use icircuit on my ipad, but the library is limited and not expandable, and I need OTA symbols...   Are there any decent free schematics drawing apps you folks might recommend?
>> 
>> Cheers
>