Yahoo Groups archive
Thread
2010-07-05 by Leon Heller
RS is now supplying free PCB software: http://www.designspark.com/&cm_mmc=Email-uk-_-Jul10-_-EEM-DesignSpark_July10-_-DesignSpark I downloaded it and it's actually a version of Number One Systems Easy-PC, which I used for many years. I Leon -- Leon Heller G1HSM
2010-07-05 by acidblue
If it doesn't run on Mac and Linux then it's useless. I'll stick with Kicad. Thanks anyway. --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Leon Heller <leon355@...> wrote:
> > RS is now supplying free PCB software: > > http://www.designspark.com/&cm_mmc=Email-uk-_-Jul10-_-EEM-DesignSpark_July10-_-DesignSpark > > I downloaded it and it's actually a version of Number One Systems > Easy-PC, which I used for many years. I > > Leon > -- > Leon Heller > G1HSM >
2010-07-05 by DJ Delorie
I looked at the press release a little, and it does't seem any more "free" than anything else we already have, except that you have to join their community to unlock the software. Even Eagle doesn't make you join their community for their "free" version, and gEDA and Kicad have been even more free (and sometimes more professional) than the give-away proprietary stuff. Plus, it seems to be a node-locked single-user license, limited to one license per DesignSpark member, unless you ask for an exception. Their privacy policy explicitly states that they'll use your personal information to spam you, too - information you have to give them to activate their product. It looks like EDA software is becoming such a commodity item that every's starting to use theirs as a loss leader to get people hooked into other aspects of their business - pcb fab, design forums, extended features, advertising. I'm reserving judgement on whether or not this is a good thing - competition is good, but fragmentation can be worse.
2010-07-05 by Casainho
KiCad is free and Free :-) There is one KiCad user doing "professional" boards which I admire. The latest board is a 2 layers, ARM9 @ 454MHZ and 32MBytes SDRAM: http://lyre.sourceforge.net/?q=content/imx233-sdram-works-133mhz :-) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2010-07-05 by Leon Heller
On 05/07/2010 22:40, DJ Delorie wrote: > I looked at the press release a little, and it does't seem any more > "free" than anything else we already have, except that you have to join > their community to unlock the software. Even Eagle doesn't make you > join their community for their "free" version, and gEDA and Kicad have > been even more free (and sometimes more professional) than the give-away > proprietary stuff. > > Plus, it seems to be a node-locked single-user license, limited to one > license per DesignSpark member, unless you ask for an exception. Their > privacy policy explicitly states that they'll use your personal > information to spam you, too - information you have to give them to > activate their product. > > It looks like EDA software is becoming such a commodity item that > every's starting to use theirs as a loss leader to get people hooked > into other aspects of their business - pcb fab, design forums, extended > features, advertising. I'm reserving judgement on whether or not this > is a good thing - competition is good, but fragmentation can be worse. It looks like a full version of Easy-PC, I'll have a word with WestDev about it tomorrow and see what they say. Easy-PC is a good package, I used it for over 15 years before I got Pulsonix. Leon -- Leon Heller G1HSM
2010-07-06 by fana cute
I'm agree with DJ,
Kicad is free and very simple, kicad have all of sparkpcb features, except bill of material
If kicad vs sparkpcb, i think this score 4:0....like germany vs argentina....peace bro
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]2010-07-06 by Stefan Trethan
I think that was an excellent move by RS! If I didn't have PSX I might even give it a go. Think about it, Farnell just bought Eagle, they had to do something! And Element14 had to be countered too. Given the choice between Eagle and Easy-PC, you can guess which horse I would put my money on. Let us know what you can find out about the arrangement with Westdev. One can't import Easy-PC libs in PSX, right? ST
2010-07-06 by john cooper
DJ Delorie wrote: > > > I looked at the press release a little, and it does't seem any more > "free" than anything else we already have, except that you have to join > their community to unlock the software. Even Eagle doesn't make you > join their community for their "free" version, and gEDA and Kicad have > been even more free (and sometimes more professional) than the give-away > proprietary stuff. IME where the scales tip for me with gEDA/PCB is getting an answer to a question usually in minutes and a patch to a suspect problem in an hour. And being able to use even 30+ year old 'awk' technology to tweak footprints, etc.. on well documented text file object representations -- for the odd occasion when the GUI doesn't meet the need. That all pretty much seals the deal for me. Yea, if I'm going to routinely lay out a 20-ish layer boards requiring autorouting of transmission characteristic controlled lines well maybe I still need to wander over to the dark side. But I haven't yet had to resort to black-box software. > It looks like EDA software is becoming such a commodity item that > every's starting to use theirs as a loss leader to get people hooked > into other aspects of their business - pcb fab, design forums, extended > features, advertising. I'm reserving judgement on whether or not this > is a good thing - competition is good, but fragmentation can be worse. At one point years ago I was enticed by pcb123's proposition. I even tried to get it to work under wine (officially unsupported) without usable results. And if you want gerbers out of their proprietary format that'll be $50 on top of your board order. And of course you still haven't broken free from being tied to a proprietary, vendor specific tool. That's one data point and better propositions exist today if you really want semi-free tools. But considering the total usage burden I personally haven't found a more compelling solution elsewhere. Just my experience, YMMV. -john -- john.cooper@...
2010-07-06 by Leon Heller
On 06/07/2010 04:26, fana cute wrote: > I'm agree with DJ, > Kicad is free and very simple, kicad have all of sparkpcb features, except bill of material > If kicad vs sparkpcb, i think this score 4:0....like germany vs argentina....peace bro What is wrong with SparkPCB? If it has all the KiCAD features, and a BOM, shouldn't it be better? It's very easy to use. Leon -- Leon Heller G1HSM
2010-07-06 by Leon Heller
On 06/07/2010 05:27, Stefan Trethan wrote: > I think that was an excellent move by RS! > If I didn't have PSX I might even give it a go. > > Think about it, Farnell just bought Eagle, they had to do something! > And Element14 had to be countered too. > Given the choice between Eagle and Easy-PC, you can guess which horse > I would put my money on. > > Let us know what you can find out about the arrangement with Westdev. > > One can't import Easy-PC libs in PSX, right? You can, as well as designs. Leon -- Leon Heller G1HSM
2010-07-06 by edizontn
Hi, Schematic editor: - SparkPCB not allow drawing buses.... - Changing name and value in component, is more difficult (many mouse clicks) + unlimited pin count + schematic area max. size is 997x997 mm + FREE ! ... next +/-, I now testing. Small inside look at http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=sk&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mikrozone.eu%2Fpluginy%2Fcontent%2Fcontent.php%3Fcontent.68&sl=sk&tl=en Ed. --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Leon Heller <leon355@...> wrote:
> > On 06/07/2010 04:26, fana cute wrote: > > I'm agree with DJ, > > Kicad is free and very simple, kicad have all of sparkpcb features, except bill of material > > If kicad vs sparkpcb, i think this score 4:0....like germany vs argentina....peace bro > > > What is wrong with SparkPCB? If it has all the KiCAD features, and a > BOM, shouldn't it be better? It's very easy to use. > > Leon > -- > Leon Heller > G1HSM >
2010-07-06 by Dylan Smith
On Tue, Jul 06, 2010 at 12:44:31AM -0400, john cooper wrote: > IME where the scales tip for me with gEDA/PCB is getting an answer > to a question usually in minutes and a patch to a suspect > problem in an hour. And being able to use even 30+ year old > 'awk' technology to tweak footprints, etc.. on well documented > text file object representations -- for the odd occasion when > the GUI doesn't meet the need. That all pretty much seals the > deal for me. <aol/> I really appreciate the simple text format of all the saved files, it means you can script *anything* (I use perl instead of awk to do it though). Generally I prefer the unix philosophy (a collection of smaller tools rather than one huge monolithic tool) since it gives you more flexibility - if the authors didn't think of it chances are you can write a short script to do it and add it to your build process.
2010-07-06 by tda7000
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Leon Heller <leon355@...> wrote: > > On 06/07/2010 04:26, fana cute wrote: > > I'm agree with DJ, > > Kicad is free and very simple, kicad have all of sparkpcb features, except bill of material > > If kicad vs sparkpcb, i think this score 4:0....like germany vs argentina....peace bro > > > What is wrong with SparkPCB? If it has all the KiCAD features, and a > BOM, shouldn't it be better? It's very easy to use. > > Leon > -- > Leon Heller > G1HSM > Actually KiCAD does support output of a Bill of materials file to CSV format. In PCBNew you go File menu -> Fabrication Outputs -> BOM File. I am using the 2010-05-05 build. You may need to use this version, the older 2009 builds may not have this feature.
2010-07-06 by Stefan Trethan
Well, then let's hope RS make libraries with their _entire_ stock. (That would also solve the unemployment problem in Europe for a few years, hehe). On second thought, any such library is probably worthless. You can only trust your own components. ST
On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Leon Heller <leon355@...> wrote: >> One can't import Easy-PC libs in PSX, right? > > You can, as well as designs. > > Leon
2010-07-06 by Leon Heller
On 06/07/2010 11:11, Stefan Trethan wrote: > Well, then let's hope RS make libraries with their _entire_ stock. > (That would also solve the unemployment problem in Europe for a few > years, hehe). > > On second thought, any such library is probably worthless. You can > only trust your own components. When Farnell bought CADsoft I wondered whether they would be creating Eagle parts for all their components. 8-) It'll be interesting to see who wins, RS with free software or Farnell with Eagle. OK, there is a free version of Eagle, but it's rather limited and that and some of the lower-cost versions shouldn't be used for commercial work, IIRC. There isn't any such restriction with DesignSpark. Leon -- Leon Heller G1HSM
2010-07-06 by Stefan Trethan
The addition of the "bus" function, or any major additional features really, is unlikely. Westdev will want to sell Pulsonix. I think there was also a weakness with ground planes (copper pour) when I tested Easy-PC a while ago. ST
On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 10:48 AM, edizontn <edizontn@...> wrote: > Hi, > > Schematic editor: > - SparkPCB not allow drawing buses.... > - Changing name and value in component, is more difficult (many mouse clicks) > + unlimited pin count > + schematic area max. size is 997x997 mm > + FREE ! > > ... next +/-, I now testing. > > Small inside look at http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=sk&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mikrozone.eu%2Fpluginy%2Fcontent%2Fcontent.php%3Fcontent.68&sl=sk&tl=en > > Ed. > > --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Leon Heller <leon355@...> wrote: >> >> On 06/07/2010 04:26, fana cute wrote: >> > I'm agree with DJ, >> > Kicad is free and very simple, kicad have all of sparkpcb features, except bill of material >> > If kicad vs sparkpcb, i think this score 4:0....like germany vs argentina....peace bro >> >> >> What is wrong with SparkPCB? If it has all the KiCAD features, and a >> BOM, shouldn't it be better? It's very easy to use. >> >> Leon >> -- >> Leon Heller >> G1HSM >> > > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Be sure to visit the group home and check for new Links, Files, and Photos: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Homebrew_PCBsYahoo! Groups Links > > > >
2010-07-06 by Leon
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Stefan Trethan <stefan_trethan@...> wrote: > > The addition of the "bus" function, or any major additional features > really, is unlikely. > Westdev will want to sell Pulsonix. > > I think there was also a weakness with ground planes (copper pour) > when I tested Easy-PC a while ago. > Copper pour worked OK with DesignSpark when I tried it. Leon
2010-07-06 by Kim Vellore
I have been using diptrace for a while. I switched from Eagle to diptrace for the ease of use. I am quite comfortable with DT and I have had no limitations for the pcb's I have made so far. Kim ----- Original Message -----
From: "Stefan Trethan" <stefan_trethan@...> To: <Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 6:34 AM Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] Re: New (free) PCB software > The addition of the "bus" function, or any major additional features > really, is unlikely. > Westdev will want to sell Pulsonix. > > I think there was also a weakness with ground planes (copper pour) > when I tested Easy-PC a while ago. > > ST > > On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 10:48 AM, edizontn <edizontn@...> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Schematic editor: >> - SparkPCB not allow drawing buses.... >> - Changing name and value in component, is more difficult (many mouse >> clicks) >> + unlimited pin count >> + schematic area max. size is 997x997 mm >> + FREE ! >> >> ... next +/-, I now testing. >> >> Small inside look at >> http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=sk&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mikrozone.eu%2Fpluginy%2Fcontent%2Fcontent.php%3Fcontent.68&sl=sk&tl=en >> >> Ed. >> >> --- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Leon Heller <leon355@...> wrote: >>> >>> On 06/07/2010 04:26, fana cute wrote: >>> > I'm agree with DJ, >>> > Kicad is free and very simple, kicad have all of sparkpcb features, >>> > except bill of material >>> > If kicad vs sparkpcb, i think this score 4:0....like germany vs >>> > argentina....peace bro >>> >>> >>> What is wrong with SparkPCB? If it has all the KiCAD features, and a >>> BOM, shouldn't it be better? It's very easy to use. >>> >>> Leon >>> -- >>> Leon Heller >>> G1HSM >>> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------ >> >> Be sure to visit the group home and check for new Links, Files, and >> Photos: >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Homebrew_PCBsYahoo! Groups Links >> >> >> >> > > > ------------------------------------ > > Be sure to visit the group home and check for new Links, Files, and > Photos: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Homebrew_PCBsYahoo! Groups Links > > >
2010-07-06 by Stefan Trethan
I think the problem was that Easy PC didn't support ordered copper pour, which is essential for me since I need many planes. I assume opening the libraries/files doesn't work the other way around (opening PSX stuff with Easy-PC)? By the way (this is OT I know), do you know roughly when PSX V7 is planned for release? ST
On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:24 PM, Leon <leon355@...> wrote: > Copper pour worked OK with DesignSpark when I tried it. > > Leon
2010-07-06 by Leon Heller
On 06/07/2010 18:36, Stefan Trethan wrote: > I think the problem was that Easy PC didn't support ordered copper > pour, which is essential for me since I need many planes. > > I assume opening the libraries/files doesn't work the other way around > (opening PSX stuff with Easy-PC)? No, it only works the other way round. PSX libraries etc. are much more complex. I just created a Parallax Propeller part (DIL40) in DesignSpark. It only took a few minutes - I created a 40-pin schematic symbol, added it to the symbol library, created the part using the symbol and the DIL40 footprint from the footprint library, and copied and pasted the pin names into the DesignSpark part editor from the Pulsonix part editor. > > By the way (this is OT I know), do you know roughly when PSX V7 is > planned for release? That would be a major upgrade. My guess is a year or so. There are likely to be a few new builds released before then. They typically go two years or so between major upgrades, I think that most other CAD companies do the same. Leon -- Leon Heller G1HSM
2010-07-13 by James
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Casainho <casainho@...> wrote: > > KiCad is free and Free :-) > > There is one KiCad user doing "professional" boards which I admire. The > latest board is a 2 layers, ARM9 @ 454MHZ and 32MBytes SDRAM: > http://lyre.sourceforge.net/?q=content/imx233-sdram-works-133mhz > > :-) > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > It's as good as any of the expensive packages I've evaluated too. It's not perfect, but none of them are, the important part is that it is stable, and produces nice quality boards. All of mine so far have worked perfectly.