> DJ Delorie wrote:
> <SNIP>
> Me, I have a teardrop plugin for PCB (gEDA)
> that I use on all my boards, home etched or
> otherwise. I had one board's trace break
> right at the annulus while reworking a
> connector, and decided I didn't want to
> have to debug that again.
I have manualy teardropped pads for many
years when I used protel. When doing home
etched boards (read hand drilled) the
ammount of time lost doing teardrops is
saved in amount of time fixing things
afterwards.
I have now moved to gEDA and tried the
teardrop plugin but it seemed to make a
complete mess of oval pads. No worries
really as I am convinced of the value of
a teardrop on a hand drilled board with
no solder mask and am used to manually
doing them so I am no worse off than
when I was with protel.
Away from teardrops and back to the
thread about PCB SW and gEDA.
Here are my observations about gEDA.
The software itself seems quite
reasonable. It can do anything a 1980s
vintage full featured commercial PCB
package can do.
There are certainly features in it I
would like to see but I can live without
them. The nice thing is that it is open
source so if you DO need a feature you
can try add it.
It is however let down quite badly by
libraries and documentation.
I am building my own library of parts I
trust so that is not too much of a
problem for me. It would be nice if
the libs that shipped where consistant
as that can turn away a new user very
fast.