Homebrew PCBs

David McNab <rebirth@...> writes:
>  - do people here consider it lame to use autorouting?

No.  It's lame to *rely* on autorouting, because you (as the designer)
should know more about the signals than the autorouter.  Autorouting
is a tool, know when to use it and when to hand-route.

>  - are there any other free PCB design progs that have autorouting?

gEDA's PCB has autoplace and autoroute.  I rarely use them, relying on
my own placement and routing skills, although others think they're a
$deity-send.  PCB also has an optimizer to clean up after the
autorouter (it can clean up hand-routed traces too).  It also has auto
miter and I have an auto teardrop plugin.

>  - can eagle (or any other free progs) do auto-placement?

PCB can do autoplacement (two kinds, true autoplace and a dumb
"disperse elements" option for hand-placing).  I use the dumb one.

>  - is Eagle the best of the free PCB design progs?

Eagle isn't, technically, free.  The crippled "demo" version has
limitations, and the fully capable versions cost money.  No version of
Eagle is licensed with an open source license.

And "best" is VERY subjective.