Which circuit drawing software?

[Minor Tom]

Hi again!

As a preparation for my music related electronic projects, like building stompboxes and modifying valve amps, I would like to explore what circuit drawing software suits me best.

What do I want?
- Easy to use
- Support in the software for different versions of a circuit, perhaps even support for branches in the version tree.
- Low cost, ideally free
- Solid user base, so that there is less risk of the software being orphaned
- Ability to create new component types
- Ideally, support for valve circuits out of the box

What do you use? Or do just use DaveCAD?

Curious about and thankful for your answers
Tom

[fourtytwo42]

If you want to also simulate desighns LTspice is very easy to use (and free of course).
If simulation is less of interest then KiCad is also free and you can create pcb's from it!

[sg-o]

I suggest that you try KiCad.

In my opinion it's quite easy to use (at least as easy as most other programs).
As KiCad saves it's files in a text form it works perfectly with git and other version control systems.
It's free and open source.
It has a really large user base and is supported by Cern.
It has a small valve library included.

DaveCad is always an option for small projects, but a CAD program makes organizing all of your stuff so much easier.

[Minor Tom]

Thanks a lot for your answers, seem to be good, will look at these.
Is there some kind of interoperability (exchange format) between different programs?

... a CAD program makes organizing all of your stuff so much easier.

The most appealing thing about software for me is you can incorporate changes easily - no need to scribble things in and start again for a fresh drawing!

[Minor Tom]

As KiCad saves it's files in a text form it works perfectly with git and other version control systems.

Well, I would prefer having the Cad program do the versioning, otherwise I would perhaps stick to using folders and filename conventions. Just needs a bit of discipline. I'm just too lazy to use more software than necessary.... 

[sg-o]

There sadly is no real universal interchange format in the electrical CAD world.
KiCad can export its netlist to OrcadPCB2, CadStar and Spice. Eagle import has been announced for the next major release.

I can't think of a single electrical CAD program with integrated versioning... You will always have to do this externally. Some commercial products like Altium (quite expensive) have a UI for SVN integrated.

[james_s]

I've been satisfied with KiCAD, it's not super intuitive but frankly none of this software is. On the plus side, once you learn one of the tools the workflow transfers reasonably well to others.

[Lt_Flash]

CircuitMaker for sure. Almost Altium Designer and for free.