Orcad Capture and Zuken Cadstar offers, seen on 43oh

[PioB]

Hi all,

I saw the following offers on 43oh.com:
http://forum.43oh.com/topic/9329-cadence-orcad-capture-promotion/
http://www2.ema-eda.com/Extranet/96711/forms.aspx?msgid=32fba334-3526-4589-a145-3a488694f3d0&LinkID=CH00096711eR00000071AD&utm_source=PCDF&utm_medium=Digital+Magazine&utm_campaign=FREE+Capture Orcad capture perpetual license for 390 USD

and
http://forum.43oh.com/topic/9330-zuken-cadstar-software-promo/
http://www.zuken.com/en/campaigns/cadstar-schematics Zuken Cadstar for free.

Being absolutely new to the world of high end CAD (I am doing my hobby pcbs and some small interface boards at work in Eagle I have no idea if any of these two products would set me up with the ability to draw schematics, layout the pcb and export gerbers for production or if these are only for drawing the schematics and what other limitations exist. I would be grateful for any insight whether they'd be worth looking at. In the other Orcad thread, I saw that some people were not at all happy with Orcad, but most of the posts are >2 years old, do they still apply or did things get better?

e.g.

there WAS (not the use of past tense) nothing wrong with OrCad.

Am i correct in the assumption that with Orcad schematic capture no PCBs can be layed out and that would be "somewhat more" than the 390 USD? What does "3 Month of OrCAD Library Builder" mean? After that I cannot design any new library parts and am stuck with what I have.

Altium is out of the question for my hobby, but 390 USD or free if the product is not crippled and not stuck in 1900... Or are there any hidden gotchas one needs to know in these offers?

[AndyC_772]

OrCad Capture is the schematic entry package. It's as close to an 'industry standard' package as any other, and does the job perfectly well IMHO. I use it professionally on a daily basis.

I've no idea what "library builder" is. Never used or needed it, whatever it is.

If you want to lay out PCBs, you'll also need OrCad PCB Designer, or any other PCB layout package for which you can export a compatible net list. This costs extra, of course.

[free_electron]

Free for a year.... and then they nail you for 2k$ in yearly upkeep.
Note that this is schematic only ..... no pcb. The cadence pcb tool ( allegro) costs a medium sized house ...

want a pro tool at zero price ? Circuitmaker.

[AndyC_772]

Eh? I pay about £600 in annual maintenance for both Capture and PCB Designer (Standard), and even that is optional. If I didn't want updates or tech support, I wouldn't bother.

Maybe there's a minimum maintenance period required as part of the offer, but even then, $2000 is way more than it should be just for Capture.

[PioB]

OK thank you all very much for your tips. Are there any opinions on the Zuken cadstar free(?) offer?
I'll give circuit maker a shot for sure.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[mariush]

You can download a free version of Zuken CADSTAR from their site ( restricted to 50 components and 300 pins, otherwise no limits) : http://www.zuken.com/en/products/pcb-design/cadstar/resources/software/express

That should give you an idea about how that software works.

[nctnico]

Free for a year.... and then they nail you for 2k$ in yearly upkeep.
Note that this is schematic only ..... no pcb. The cadence pcb tool ( allegro) costs a medium sized house ...

No it doesn't! I got a very reasonable quote to upgrade my ancient Orcad capture + layout to the latest version of Capture + Allegro including a 2 day training to get up to speed with Allegro quickly. The latter is also the pitfall when selecting a CAD package: only when you are familiar with it you can truly say it is bad or not.

Whether you take the yearly upkeep is up to you but IMHO a software package should work for you as it is today.

[asgard20032]

I was on 43oh and saw this offer. I know its only for pcb, but i am still thinking about getting it, if there is a nice pcb editor cheap/free that i could put in combo with it. And does this offer about capture also do some simulation? What pcb editor would you recommend that would be compatible with capture?

[uncle_bob]

I was on 43oh and saw this offer. I know its only for pcb, but i am still thinking about getting it, if there is a nice pcb editor cheap/free that i could put in combo with it. And does this offer about capture also do some simulation? What pcb editor would you recommend that would be compatible with capture?

Hi

Ok, there are a bunch of layers to this and no easy answers.

You go to put in a part in the schematic. Where do the parts come from? A library. Is the part you want already in the library? Maybe yes, maybe no.  If you need to put in the part, how tough is the library input program to use?

Your schematic is done. Next step is to check it. That's done with some sort of design rules checker. Can you modify it so that it suits your needs? Maybe yes, maybe no. Does it spurt 287 "warnings" that obscure anything useful? (My pro package at work does ...).

Off to do your PC Board. Does the schematic import into the PCB program? Does the library that had the schematic symbols also have the proper part footprint? Does that footprint need to be modified each time you change this or that in your PB layout (layer count ...)? Again, a lot of variables.

Now that your board is laid out, it's time to check it. You want to be sure that the schematic and the layout agree with each other. You also want to be sure that your board does not have any errors in it that will make it fail. On some planet there are layout people who never ever need to check their work. I always check mine. Does your program allow some flexibility in the rules it checks to? Can you change the rules by layer or by area of the board? (nice but expensive).

Your perfect board is now ready to go. ...errr ... Now you need to generate Gerber and NC drill files to send to the pcb house. Does your program generate them properly (layout == Gerbers) or do you need to check every blasted trace on every layer with a third party viewer? When your pcb house runs the files, do they agree with your program *and* with the viewer you used? 

Are you working mostly with "small stuff" on two layer boards? Do you plan on running multiple 144 pin package parts on many layers? These days, big package parts are dirt cheap ... it's tempting ....

Is this a hobby budget or a company budget? A lot of the big packages have an evaluation mode that gets suggested for hobby use. It's rare to find one that lets you play with those big lead count parts.

I wish I could point you to a single solution rather than a bunch of branches in a decision tree ....

Bob

[nctnico]

Orcad Capture can create several netlist formats and most PCB packages can read several netlist formats so you can use about any decent PCB layout package together with Orcad Capture.