Hi all,
I started a H/W project a few months ago and was trying to select a CAD tool to implement the PCB in.
I considered making it open source but never made a decision (still haven't) but didn't want my tool selection to hinder open sourcifying the project in the future.
I use Altium at work but it was too expensive. So my choices were:
kicad, eagle, design spark and circuit maker.
I rejected eagle (even though it seems to be the current standard for open source) because I feel the writing is on the wall for eagle. Having seen Daves CM review I believe this even more.
Between Farnell jumping in bed with Altium wrt circuit studio and Altium releasing circuit maker I don't see future funding for eagle to develop.
Infact, now that circuit studio pricing is available, I might have to eat my words. I agree with Dave, the pricing is way off the mark and eagle users have no reason to jump to circuit studio.
They do, however, have every reason to jump to circuit maker. Especially if they used eagle for open source h/w. In any case, eagle's still stuck between a rock and a hard place (business/funding wise)
Since circuit maker wasn't in open beta at the time i started my project, I made the decision to use kicad. I didn't choose circuit studio because - why waste my money, when I can waste my time with KiCAD.
Saying KiCad does everything a PCB designer needs is a bit like saying "some transparent overhead projector film and a black sharpie does everything a PCB designer needs"
yeah, sure you could design a 10 layer board with DDR3, PCIe and a truck load of other high speed interfaces, but would you?
You'd need a stupid amount of time and infinite patience.
A bit like KiCAD then isn't it?
The worst part of learning KiCAD was trying to figure out why my keyboard at work wasn't working the way it usually does with Altium.
Its only then, you realise your finely honed muscle memory of Altium shortcuts has been replaced by KiCAD shortcuts.
Eventually KiCAD grew on me and I can now separate it from Altium at work. I actually like it.
After watching the review I found myself considering implementing the next two boards of my project in CM and moving the first from KiCAD to CM.
I decided to stick with KiCAD.
For me, CM in the cloud (Altiums cloud) is a bit risky. I'm not comfortable with the idea of Altium being able to lock me out if everything goes the way of the dodo.
Also, since my project is split over multiple PCBs (each PCB being considered as its own project in Altium) I would be over the CM limit of two private projects (assuming it works like Altium)
I know, I know, I haven't gone open source but I may in the future.
I think I secretly like the idea behind open source h/w. A rather romantic notion. Brings a tear to the eye as Dave says.
So for me, I'm hedging my bets towards KiCAD.
I use it with the daily updates automatically applied. Aside from frequent git library issues (now solved with a setting on my side), everything seems to run fine.
So what's your take?
Regards
Tabs