PCB design software.

[Corporate666]

... Hobby tools like Eagle and Kicad are completely irrelevant and, in my own experience, are never, ever seen in commercial use...

You must have a huge amount of experience to say declaratively that Eagle and Kicad are never, ever seen in commercial use...

Oh wait, I know of at least one company that uses Eagle.  I have to admit that I know very little about what software companies use, but I do know enough not to make statements like that.

There is at least one semi-major defense contractor in the USA who uses Eagle (they may also use others, I'm not saying they only use Eagle).  I was surprised.  I find that when a company of size uses Eagle, people often do a double take.

Nothing wrong with Eagle other than it's limited functionality, stupid interface and some limitations on what you can do, which come into play when you get into more complex boards... but it definitely has a place in the corporate world.

[westfw]

Crippled software, even the free version of Eagle, is for evaluation purposes. It does just enough to allow you to test its function on a small scale before buying the software. It's not designed to be used for actual projects. You can, if your project happens to be trivial but was never the idea.

Oh, I don't know.  Cadsoft's range of licenses has included some very-low-cost options that has worked out pretty well for a bunch of small projects.  I don't think they expected  that their free/minimal version would be as useful and popular as it has become (matching up reasonably well with the size of "arduino shields" and "seeed studio PCB service", and so on.)  But they deserve some credit for retaining those licenses anyway!

To say that EAGLE is never used commercially neglects a large segment of "small" commercial businesses.
One of the things I like about EAGLE is that the "full" version is something I could afford if I were to decide to take electronics design "seriously" as a consultant or member of a small shop.   The "pro" packages seem to start at $10K+, which is ... a lot.

KICAD is in its infancy.  The same sorts of arguments were made about things like gcc and linux being unsuitable for commercial use, back in their early days...

[AndyC_772]

Guys, I did say in my experience the likes of Eagle aren't used commercially. Of course there are a few statistical outliers, but they're very much the exception. Sometimes individual engineers or technicians use their own favourite tool for a little job here and there because it's something they know or have available on their own PCs.

Professional grade tools don't have to be outrageously expensive, though of course the more capable variants are. Personally I use Orcad PCB Designer Standard, which is about £2000 and includes schematic and PCB software with no artificial restrictions on board size, layer count or net list. It was a significant capital investment when I started doing consultancy work, of course, but hardly a crippling one.

Crucially, as well as allowing me to design boards myself, using this software I can also exchange files with customers and design bureaux who use variants with five or even six figure price tags. It's all the same tool chain, just different licence files, and that upgrade path is another good reason to use more 'grown-up' software. You can start on the bottom rung of a very tall ladder indeed, rather than climb to the top of a stumpy little one and then have to start all over again if you need to climb higher.

[Josephine85]

Hmm IMO i would start with EAGLE's free version too. The pro tools are not necassary at the beginning and you learn the basics.
I also think they offer one of the best supports with loads of tutorials, videos and a EAGLE forum

[cthree]

Hmm IMO i would start with EAGLE's free version too. The pro tools are not necassary at the beginning and you learn the basics.
I also think they offer one of the best supports with loads of tutorials, videos and a EAGLE forum

For a beginner this is true. Being able to ask a question to the community and get a response is important when you've got a lot of questions as you do initially. It will get you up to speed faster.

Not everyone uses PCB layout and schematic capture all the time. I use it every couple of months. If you do that sort of work as your mainline job then, yeah, invest in the tools which will make your life easy and give you the widest range of capability. A one man band/hobbyist is going to spend most of their time doing something else like design, proto, software and maybe sales/customer service if a consultant. I think Eagle suits that role well. If I can't do it in Eagle then its time to job it out to a real pro who will use whatever they use.

I use Eagle to make early and development prototypes of designs which allow me to use various eval boards for various core components. Most of it is 2 sided with a mix of through hole and SMD, connectors mostly for connecting the various eval boards together both to test the designs and to write software and demo the design while a real pro does the actual layout of the production PCB. Obviously that assumes project approval and funding.

When a design gets the green light from whoever is paying for it then I hand my schematics over to a pro in eagle format and they do what needs to be done including any FCC or CE or ISO conformance stuff per spec.

[AndyC_772]

Why do you feel that way about Orcad? Is there something specific you dislike about it, or did you just not get on with it generally?

[AndyC_772]

I agree in a few cases, but most of the things you've mentioned were fixed ages ago.

The latest version is 16.6, and I'd definitely recommend getting a demo. You can download a 'lite' version from the Cadence web site.

I use Orcad every day professionally, and it's one of those tools that I find I can just pick up and use to get the job done without having to think too hard about it. I wouldn't seek to try and defend every one of its quirks, because it does certainly have room for improvement, and one or two of the comments you've made are still valid - but it's odd to hear a tool that does a good job described as 'terrible, avoid at all costs'.

[Köcki]

i would recommend the free version of EAGLE
in my eyes the best pcb design software for beginners, and it is for free 

[Zero999]

I used Altium many years ago when I did my apprenticeship and is probably the best out there but it's expensive and overkill for hobby use.

I've also used a p1r8 version of Eagle, it's powerful but the UI is awkward.

My favourite for hobby use is KiCad

[mianchen]

Upverter anyone?

[davidleverett30]

I`ve found Upverter great for doing fast prototypes.

I am currently installing EAGLE..

What is the "stardard" software used in the industry??

What is the most commen software used by hobbyists?

[frankhs]

I'm a big fan of Dip Trace. It is free up to 300 pins. When I first started they would give you a free upgrade to 500 pins just for emailing them. I don't know if they are still offering that. You can make a fairly complex schematic with 300 pins and you can divide your project into multiple files if the 300 pin limit is not enough.

I started with eagle and found it very awkward to use. When I switched to dip Trace, I was amazed at how intuitive it was.

http://diptrace.com/download-diptrace/