Upverter

[ScottBurr]

Just listened to the Amp Hour #358 and found out that Altium have bought Upverter. Decided I had to take a look.

As a hard core Altium user since it was Protel 99 I am very reluctant to change cad packages now, for the ususal reasons, I have put years of my life into developing my own libraries.

But at the same time, having to develop much fewer components myself is seriously attractive. I would say 70% of the time on any design is spent doing this. That's a big chunk of your life, that I would like to have back in the future!

I have started doing a schematic in it, it seems quite intuitive, but I have not got to the PCB yet and I have a strong feeling this is where it could fall down, so my question is, has anyone got any experience of using the system and how have you found it?


Regards,

Scott

[DerekG]

Just listened to the Amp Hour #358 and found out that Altium have bought Upverter. Decided I had to take a look.

As a hard core Altium user since it was Protel 99 I am very reluctant to change cad packages now, for the usual reasons, I have put years of my life into developing my own libraries.

I started even earlier than you - with Easytrax & then Autotrax before moving onto Protel for Windows.

I believe that Protel lost their way not long after it became Altium ....... so I began to look around at other pcb packages.

I always liked Circad. It was (is) very similar to the early Protel product, however they have not done any serious updates since about 2010, so I was lucky I did not invest in it.

With all the bugs in Altium 14, I decided I really wanted to leave that product behind.

I played with about 8 or 10 packages, then I found DipTrace 3 years ago.

So, for some of my contract work I still use Altium & Proteus, however my choice for all my own designs is DipTrace (you can export into Altium via the PCAD filter if you need to).

A group of us have been working the the technical team at DipTrace over the past 3 years to implement the better features of Altium into DipTrace. Version 2.9 was a real jump forward & that has been followed by Version 3.1.

To give just one example of how Altium user input has improved DipTrace - we wanted a single key to cycle between imperial & metric units even when pop up screens were active. I asked Altium for that back in 2006 ........ and no, it is still not implemented. We asked DipTrace for that last year & the first release this year had it fully operational.

We asked for hot keys last year to replicate Altium's shortcuts, and again in the first release this year we have it.

But at the same time, having to develop much fewer components myself is seriously attractive. I would say 70% of the time on any design is spent doing this. That's a big chunk of your life, that I would like to have back in the future!

Take a look at http://componentsearchengine.com/pcb-libraries.php

You can get most parts & add them directly to your DipTrace libraries here. Also works for Altium by the way.

so my question is, has anyone got any experience of using the system and how have you found it?

Upverter has a similar feel to it as EasyEDA. There are a couple of threads on here re EasyEDA.

........... but if you are really looking for a simple, logical but powerful GUI, take a look at DipTrace.

PS: Did you know that Altium's best programmers are based in the Ukraine? (actually, some have now managed to emigrate to the USA). DipTrace is developed in the Ukraine too!

[ScottBurr]

Hi Derek,

Thanks for the reply, sorry my delay in responding, I have only just seen your response!

I never did get round to finishing off my journey into Upverter.

I have just moved jobs and I find myself in need to purchase a CAD package. I have spoken to Altium UK who want nearly £7K for a licence. I've probably bought 20 or so seats off them in the past 15 years at various companies I have worked at. I feel like they ought to give me a discount! (I did try and negotiate, I got 10% but I'm holding out for more).

So DipTrace sounds like it is worth looking at, glad I found your response, I'll investigate and let you know my thoughts!

Regards,

Scott