But as a first time user, it doesnt seem that bad. Of course, I havent compared it to Altium, and maybe that would cause me to change my mind. If the board size limitations werent so strict and/or the price a little cheaper I'd probably jump and buy with less hesitation. That seems to have stopped now, but if its happened once, theres a problem that could always flare up again. I suppose I should give Altium CS a go (or maybe not, Windows only and I use a Mac!!! ) Also adding a little doubt to my mind about Eagle recently was a roughly 2 week period where it would crash continuously. The Eagle pricing structure was always a bit iffy to me, I do genuinely like using Eagle, it seems to suit me, but I really dislike some of the "crippling" board size limitations - over $800 for only 16x10cm (or nearly $600 if you can live without the autorouter) Altium CS doesnt seem to have such a limitation that I could see from a quick glance (at least its not a "selling point" like it is with Eagle), so now Im feeling a bit in limbo about whether to stick with Eagle, or switch to Altium CS. Component report-Report5.Customize report.New/Edit6.Choose the opitions and save.7. But Eagle has just been bought out by Autodesk so theres a little uncertainty for the future (how will it be priced, bundled, etc), and Altium has dropped its price for CS (perhaps in response). Now I am doing schematics, PCB layouts, and creating my own libraries of components including new component footprints for parts that arent included with the bundled libraries. The PCB layout may really be what you want at the end of the day, but you need to build the circuit first and be able to make changes easily, and then that will make the PCB portion a more successful operation. Start with the schematic editor and get comfortable with that, and then learn how to do the PCB layout. Diptrace is simple and easy tool which will help you to learn and design. No fighting the UI or tools trying to do what I think it should do or want it to do, but knowing what it will do. This video gives a brief intro on how to get started with PCB design using Diptrace. I started quite simply by watching a few series of videos from different people on YouTube in order to get (or affirm) a couple of opinions and view points about how to do things before I really even sat down to start using the software so that my expectation and mindset was defined. Personally, I am feeling reasonably confident and productive with it after only a couple of weeks. Ok, maybe its not the perfect user interface, and maybe there are some features missing that would make it a nicer piece of software (especially if you are used to them in other packages) - compared to other products - but its certainly not a completely unusable piece of software that some people make it out to be. So I dont understand why so many people hate on it so much. Ive basically just got in to PCB design as someone who has an interest in electronics, and tried Eagle, and really like it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |