<html><head></head><body><div style="font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div style="font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div><div>Have not used Dip Trace, as of yet, but will take a peek.<br></div><div><br></div><div class="ydpfed6bf32signature"><div><font size="2">Sincerely, <br> </font></div><div><font size="2">Chris Juried <br>Audio Engineering Society (AES) <var id="ydpfed6bf32yui-ie-cursor"></var>Member <br>InfoComm-Recognized AV Technologist</font><span class="ydpfed6bf32postbody"><br><a href="http://www.JuriedEngineering.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.JuriedEngineering.com</a> <br><a href="http://www.TubeEquipment.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.TubeEquipment.com</a> <br><a href="http://www.HistoryOfRecording.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.HistoryOfRecording.com</a> <br></span><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjuried" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjuried</a><br></div><div><font size="3"><font size="2"><b>Email:</b> <a href="mailto:CJuried@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CJuried@yahoo.com</a> <br><b>Voice:</b> (954) 478-4355 <br><br><br>This e-mail, and any attachments thereto, is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any distribution or copying of this email, and any attachments thereto, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify me at (954) 300-9972 and permanently delete the original and any copy of any e-mail and any printout thereof.</font></font><br></div></div></div>
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On Thursday, June 28, 2018, 4:11:24 PM EDT, sleepy_dog@gmx.de <sleepy_dog@gmx.de> wrote:
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<div><div dir="ltr"><br clear="none">>> Hi Group,<br clear="none">>> Who is currently utilizing Eagle for their PCB layouts? If not, what are you currently using?<br clear="none">>><br clear="none">> Kicad. It's free-as-in-beer, Free-as-in-Speech, and saves all its files<br clear="none">> as well-documented plain text so it works well with version control<br clear="none">> software like git and it's easy to write your own tools to vandalise^W<br clear="none">> customise your libraries.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">For the reasons listed, I would really like to use Kicad. Especially the <br clear="none">vandali..eh customizing aspect. Write some script that quickly does some <br clear="none">things the program doesn't do, or with much more effort... But I just <br clear="none">can't get over it's funny (to me) UI.<br clear="none">It looks like the most feature-rich free package out there, though, with <br clear="none">regards to some features regarded "pro only" in other packages.<br clear="none">Since I don't need those urgently enough...<br clear="none"><br clear="none">So I'm using DipTrace, which is only "free to use", currently with 2 <br clear="none">layers and 300 pins per board (500 if you e-mail them & confirm it's <br clear="none">non-commercial).<br clear="none">I.e. unlike Eagle, the restriction is pin count, not board size. Only <br clear="none">you know what's more useful to you.<br clear="none">Prices for licenses above that seem reasonable, comparable to Eagle, <br clear="none">last time I checked.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">If you used Eagle before, you might miss some simple but essential <br clear="none">seeming features like instant highlighting of a net in schematic and PCB <br clear="none">at the same time. (need to select from net list in DipTrace, quick <br clear="none">enough, but not as convenient)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">If you never used Eagle, or any PCB design program at all (because they <br clear="none">all have, eh, "evolved", as in, *platypus*, UI designs, lol), the <br clear="none">likelihood seems high that, for the basic things, using DipTrace seems <br clear="none">rather self-explanatory. That includes entering circuits, making PCB <br clear="none">from that, and to a slightly lesser extent, making new components and <br clear="none">footprints.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Not everything is on key combos by default - but you can give everything <br clear="none">one / customize all(?), so you could do "everything" with keyboard, from <br clear="none">what I've seen. Stuff in menu entries does usually list assigned key <br clear="none">combo. Context menu entries usually make sense. (yay!)<br clear="none">It does have *some* weird aspects to usage, e.g. scenarios where <br clear="none">selecting things gets fumbly, different sets of listed actions depending <br clear="none">on where on an object you click... But compared to what else I've seen <br clear="none">out there in the wild... It seems to present fewer barriers to get to do <br clear="none">stuff :D<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The copper pour algorithm sometimes does funny things to parcitular pads <br clear="none">or regions around them (the connections), needs some hand tweaking for <br clear="none">some pads.<br clear="none">No idea how that is in other packages. It's not too bad.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The humongous 3D library for components, a separate download, unpacks to <br clear="none">some gigabytes, does provide a nice 3D view of your board and a very <br clear="none">many kinds of common components.<br clear="none">A colleague EE recently said that that's a lot nicer in DipTrace than in <br clear="none">$$$$$ PADS. If that ain't something.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">- Steve<div class="ydp504edb7byqt2466912309" id="ydp504edb7byqtfd85365"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">Synth-diy mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:Synth-diy@synth-diy.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://synth-diy.org/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy</a><br clear="none"></div></div></div>
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