Design & layout software for beginners

[Simon]

in fact the latest download dates back to over a year ago or am I missing something ? I don't want to be funny but i stopped using kicad as I felt its development was too risky for comercial work, they changed things without really explaining how to use the new features and library system. I'm sorry but I don't have time to keep up with developer politics when i'm trying to do stuff for work

[RenGate]

in fact the latest download dates back to over a year ago or am I missing something ? I don't want to be funny but i stopped using kicad as I felt its development was too risky for comercial work, they changed things without really explaining how to use the new features and library system. I'm sorry but I don't have time to keep up with developer politics when i'm trying to do stuff for work

CERN developers actively contribute to KiCad and have already implemented some nice features like interactive router. You can find more info about results of their work at http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki . However, one drawback of such a way of KiCad development is that you must manually build it from source files to get a latest version.

[Simon]

However, one drawback of such a way of KiCad development is that you must manually build it from source files to get a latest version.

You mean the only way of getting anything that is not more than a year out of date is to hope to build it yourself (I tried and failed), the development is getting a bit like linux, either you wrote it and know how to set it up or you can't use it......... that is why i gave up on it.

[suicidaleggroll]

You mean the only way of getting anything that is not more than a year out of date is to hope to build it yourself (I tried and failed), the development is getting a bit like linux, either you wrote it and know how to set it up or you can't use it......... that is why i gave up on it.

Can't disagree with you there.  I have a lot of experience building software from source, but KiCAD is a mess in that regard.  I was never able to get it going either, no matter what Linux distro I'm using I always end up having to install the 1+ year old version from the standard repo in order to get it to work (which does work just fine, but it doesn't have the latest features).

[Wilksey]

I have no doubt that Android would run a package, I have no doubt people can use a BT keyboard and mouse, but unless you have a 20"+ android tablet, apart from the fact it becomes unportable at that size, why would you want to? I have a laptop from 10 years ago and it runs all of the apps I want, it's a 17" screen, I can hook up a 3 button mouse if I am feeling adventurous.  I would in no way want to try and produce a professional or hobbyist circuit / pcb design on my samsung phone though! Ludicrous! So yes, comedy gold!

With regards to KiCAD, I have built several from CERN and they did take a lot of faffing around to get it to go, but did manage it.
It's a difficult one, it's quite mature and very well built for it's price! (Free) but I would not want to use it for anything commercial, although more than capable, I am not 100% convinced it is stable.

I am really not sure what the hate is with Autorouters, place critical clock signals or high speed ones by hand sure, but for the rest, eh, auto route away!  They do not always produce the "prettiest" results, but 99% of the time they do an very good job (depends on the autorouter, granted) at routing, I have found that ripping up and changing component layout can yield better results, as long as you set the auto router parameters it will work, I have been surprised in the past on autorouter boards as they have looked aesthetically pleasing and when asked how the answer has always been component placement and setting the auto router up.  Personal preference I suppose.

[Simon]

Yes i much prefered kicad to diptrace for placing routes, nice things like being in the middle of a trace and being able to right click and place a via and automatically carry on with the trace on the other layer, as far as i know you can't do that with diptrace and i found it a pig to work with. I often use an autorouter, the one in diptrace is a bit squarish and wastes a lot of trace length, freerouting produces excellent results that I just cannot fault providing cough, cough a certain program passes the correct information to it. And yes I tend to run the auto router, look at it, if i spot a part that is in the wrong place for optimum routing i dump it, move the part and re rerun the autorouter until I'm happy with it.

[rfbroadband]

you will have to determine for yourself whether you want simulation (Spice) capabilities or whether you just want do draw schematics and layouts. OrCad/PSpice has an probably the best simulation capabilities, but it is somewhat expensive. As a beginner you get a lot things simulated with the free LT spice that also runs on OS X. In terms of layout, if you have never done layout before, start with any of the free packages until you hit limits of the tool and that point you can start comparing tools that cost money. Altium is probably the most cost efficient choice at that point.

[tkline98]

Wow!  Lots of great responses here.   I looked at KiCad since Chris talks about it just about every week, but I didn't want to get into the multiple prerequisite installs.  I haven't had much luck with mac ports in the past and didn't want to clog up a new machine with all that just to test out KiCad. 

I think I'll try Eagle next. 

[miguelvp]

I think I'll try Eagle next.

Good quick tutorial here including layout and producing gerbers that you can send to a board manufacturer:
https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/108

[drtaylor]

I use Osmond PCB on a Mac. A very easy to use versatile layout package. Very high resolution and has many features usually found only on high end layout programs.  www.osmondpcb.com. Check out the topic "Electronics Development on a Mac".

[charlespax]

I'm running OSX and Eagle works fine. I've tried KiCAD, but the install never worked well. I'm not even sure what file to download. I Build robots, 3D printers, and open source lab instruments and I can't get KiCAD to compile on OSX. It's just not worth your time.

Since I last wrote the above statement KiCad has gotten better on OSX and I have successfully designed a PCB though I have not physically ordered it. There are now nightly builds. I hope to move my future projects to KiCad.

[unfy]

I recently picked up an 8" Android tablet.  Gonna try my best to use it as something 'useful' and not just some media consumption device.

As such, one of the ideas was to keep schematics on it for when assembling boards or similar - and to annotate / draw on them as I went.  Kind of like a digital version of what everyone does to paper schematics heh.

To do so, currently have Xodo as a free PDF annotator thing and would keep schematics as PDF's on the device.  I do have some fear that the annotated PDF's might only be readable in Xodo, but whatever... can cross that bridge later.  Similarly, I wanna try to keep datasheets on it as well.

Anyway, if there was a kikad android that was "almost" readonly, that would be actually kinda useful in this regard.  I have no desire to do full on editing, mind you - just something to make notes on.

As far as the original opic: kikad is easy enough to get going even from a 'completely new to things' stand point.  There's a few gotcha's, but some simple googling should be able to answer those quickly.

[Sigmoid]

I run kiCAD inside a Linux virtual machine on OSX... I had some hopes for the new free Altium, but they remained Windows only.

I really wonder how long it takes the kiCAD people to finally do some sort of release. (Or, even better, regular releasES...) Nightly builds aren't really meant for use in a normal software project.

[Bassman59]

I really wonder how long it takes the kiCAD people to finally do some sort of release. (Or, even better, regular releasES...) Nightly builds aren't really meant for use in a normal software project.

This has been discussed here at length.

A stable release on all three platforms is planned for the end of next month. The developers have been working very hard to make that happen.

You should browse or follow the developers' mailing list to keep up to date.

[xrayxray]

Fritzing



http://fritzing.org/download/