Altium Designer new pricing model and high end / low end tool in development

[poorchava]

Ok, I'm lost here... How the hell are you supposed to use PCB CAD without schematic capture? Write the netlist by hand to a txt file?!

I've done it before for really simple stuff. Just drag out the footprints only and connect them based on relevant chicken-scratching/back-of-napkin circuit.

Oh yes, just like Wintek's SmartWork back in the 80's............so maybe Altium have aquired the source code from them........ 
I better brush up then....F2 was place-pad wasn't it?

Ian.

I've done that too. But then it's not much better than Corel, Inkscape or Autocad

[Brorulf]

yes yes yes. Finally after 10 year they have decided to do, what Auto CAD is doing with their light version . Or Eagle cad for that mater.
please, don't do a Size crippled version ow the program. As for example. PCB Size, Rat net Size, PGA Size...
Its better to not include advanced functionality in the program.
Or make a restriction on number of components. Not number of connections on the component. Please.
Please don't exclude a auto router.
And let the 3D capacitate stay.

And...  …  Hmmm!? Well?.. Hmm. AAA, and maybe make the program modular. So any wan can grow in functionality over time.

[EEVblog]

Please don't exclude a auto router.

Why?
I think an autorouter is an excellent and obvious feature to leave out of a low end tool.

[Frost]

I think an autorouter is an excellent and obvious feature to leave out of a low end tool.

That's true.
The simple PCBs I designed as a hobby user, I have always routed by hand.
So I bought eagle without the autorouter and never missed the function.

[mikeselectricstuff]

AR should certainly not at the expense of other features.
The only difference between having an autorouter or not is how much time it takes to do the job.
A low-end tool is aimed at people who can't/won't throw money at a problem to save time. Therefore an autorouter has to be a lower priority than other features.
A lower cost tool has to have some features missing compared to the higher end version, so in deciding the feature set, you basically decide where on a list of capabilities to draw the line(s) between versions.
So the presence of an autorouter would probably be at the expense of other features.  A "cheap" autorouter is probably worse than none at all, especially on the low layer counts that low-end users are likely to be using.
A low-end package by definition has to have some things left out or limited, and the list of what a low-end PCB package should have, there are plenty of things, e.g. 3D, that would  be a higher priority.
Unfortunately autorouters, like pick & place machines, are attractive to people that don't understand the issues involved using them.

[PedroDaGr8]

Am I the only one, who feel that 4 layer support even for a free version seem almost mandatory these days?

They could do what DipTrace does. Unlimited ground and power planes but only two signal planes. Which to me makes sense.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

[graynomad]

Please don't exclude a auto router.

Please DO exclude the auto router, apart from the above arguments it's bloody useless anyway.

After many years of not touching AR I recently decided to give it a try again, after all it's been 20 years or more, the algorithms must be pretty good by now eh?

I routed a part of a board, not bad, a bit of cleaning up to do, then I did some more, still reasonable, then I let it rip. What an effing dog's breakfast. Thanks but no thanks, I'll route by hand.

[T3sl4co1l]

I've never seen an autorouter worth its time.  At least Altium has some "gloss" features that kind of sort of make it not painfully ugly, but it's still just bad.

I was playing around recently in Ultiboard 11, what a mess the autorouter makes...

Tim

[matkar]

I've never seen an autorouter worth its time.

True. Autorouter is not for beginners. To make a usable product with AR you have to set a very strict package of rules. Not mentioning placing components plays a major role in AR success rate. Even so you often have to correct some weirdness AR leaves behind. Adding all up, you're quicker routing by hand.

[Macbeth]

I recently saw a demo of "push and shove" routing. This on kicad developed by CERN engineers. It looks really good and much better than any AR I have ever tried.

One thing though, the only PCB package I have ever found to autoroute single side boards with auto generated top layer jumpers is an ancient AutoCAD (v9?) or Cadence. I hate them though, the UI is just like a 386 MS-DOS/Windows mutation with a mix of mouse and weird keyboard spanking. The whole package was/is really clunky.

I do miss the auto jumper facility as my ancient supply of single side PCBs and UV, etching tank etc, is still great for prototyping

I use RS DesignSpark for now. It's really nice but of course produces an RS BOM (I have a Farnell add-in for that though!)

I think I will check out kicad...

[graynomad]

Trouble is I think many beginners think AR is a silver bullet that will do all the work and save them from having to learn the nuances of PCB design. I can certainly see the attraction, especially if you just want to do a single board and don't plan to become a PCB guru.

As I said, they were crap 20 years ago but I thought they would be good by now. Wrong! Still crap.

[GrumpyUnclePete]

I've been using Protel 98 for years now. I love it. Small, fast, simple, effective. But now, horror of horrors, we've been forced to "upgrade" to Windows 7 (64 bit) and of course now my old friend Protel won't play anymore. Yeah, I tried running it under XP Virtual Machine but that has major issues.

Anyway, as of yesterday I gave up. We've always had Altium Designer on our company network. We did some of their courses years ago and I've used it for doing simple Xilinx CPLD designs using schematic entry (don't judge me...) and it has generally been OK. I used it a bit in the early days for PCB work but quickly reverted back to Protel. Now I have to bite the bullet. AD13 - it's horrible. Too horrible for words. In frustration I typed "Altium Designer is rubbish" into Google and ended up here!

The thought that Altium could bring out a stripped down package certainly gives me a glimmer of hope. But I fear the chances of them actually giving us what we need are minimal at best. The whole Designer package has just gone way too far off the rails to ever return. Maybe attacking it from the other end would work better - could somebody find the Protel 98 code and bring it into the present? Surely it's not that hard?! I'd pay real money for that!

Just in case our new Chinese overlords ever finish up here - feed this into your spybot. <rant> I just want a Protel 2014! Please!! I don't need autorouting or 64,000 layers. I don't need a manager for every little process. I don't want 32 options in a menu (yes, I counted them). I don't need a query builder. I don't want to create an Output Job File just so I can print something out! I don't need three different ways of running the same command. I want nothing to do with vaults or clouds. And I definitely don't need FPGA developement or anything to do with a damn nanoboard! Just something small, fast and effective for designing PCB's. Is it really that hard? </rant>

Fortunately I can still use 98 at home. I use it for therapy after I've been at work all day battling AD13! Ahhhh - so refreshing...

Pete (now with more grumpiness!)

[graynomad]

Well said. Take 3 valium and report back tomorrow

[EEVblog]

The thought that Altium could bring out a stripped down package certainly gives me a glimmer of hope. But I fear the chances of them actually giving us what we need are minimal at best. The whole Designer package has just gone way too far off the rails to ever return. Maybe attacking it from the other end would work better - could somebody find the Protel 98 code and bring it into the present? Surely it's not that hard?!

Well, it is really. They'd have to support two different code bases, and then there is no upgrade path for people from the lite version to the full version. So it would be pretty foolish to even try doing that. Same thing with PCAD or Circuitmaker 2000.
The latest Altium does offer some really valuable stuff over Protel 98 or 99SE, it's well worth getting to learn it.

[Alphatronique]

Hi GrumpyUnclePete

what you describe was  named P-cad 2006  O0

opuss sorry altium have die and put it on the trash  after promise to integrate it to altium DXP ..

the fun joke it offer me a discount of 50% for "Upgrade" to altium

that good have paid p-cad 12,000$ and offer to "upgrade" to altium that sell for 5,000   
personally i call it paid for downgrade but altium sale rep see it as major upgrade

so now i use zuken but learn curve was very sharp   ,

i  hope some one made P-Cad 2014 ;-)  so easy to use and intuitive and do only PCB noting else

[GrumpyUnclePete]

[
The latest Altium does offer some really valuable stuff over Protel 98 or 99SE, it's well worth getting to learn it.

Which part exactly is the valuable bit? I'm all ears because at present I don't have a choice - I have to use Altium Designer.

[EEVblog]

Which part exactly is the valuable bit?

The 3D is worth the price of admission alone. Not just for actual 3D parts, but for seeing your board with mask, silk etc before you make it.

[graynomad]

I second that, 3D is amazingly useful. You can put your board into an enclosure, and check mechanical clearances between parts. If you have multiple PCBs you can put them together to see if the connectors really do match.  etc etc.

It takes a while to amass a good collection of 3D models though.

[GrumpyUnclePete]

I look forward to viewing my new board in glorious 3D. Oh, after I edit all my library parts to include the 3D data.

I'm sure the project manager won't mind paying for the extra time involved. 

I'm off home to find those valium..

[Chopsticks]

Just wondering what people's views are on them going cross platform to include Linux and Apple Mac? Is it even feasible to do so? Eagle does and dip trace does to an extent using wine...

[firewalker]

Dave, another tip for them. At least WINE compatible (Like DipTrace). 

Alexander.

[EEVblog]

Just wondering what people's views are on them going cross platform to include Linux and Apple Mac? Is it even feasible to do so? Eagle does and dip trace does to an extent using wine...

Altium has always been written in Delphi. The software devs can tell you how feasible it would be to do that...

[EEVblog]

I look forward to viewing my new board in glorious 3D. Oh, after I edit all my library parts to include the 3D data.

No, you don't need to do that, just hit the 3D button and you get your blank board in 3D. That alone is incredibly useful as a visual aid.

[poorchava]

Aside from mechanical cad interaction, I find 3d mode incredibly useful for interaction with customers, especially those who are not engineers (or otherwise technically competent). If you are presenting stuff to a client, 3d model is so much better than black/red/blue 2d mosaic.

[graynomad]

If you are presenting stuff to a client, 3d model is so much better than black/red/blue 2d mosaic.

Yes good point, non-tech people can much more relate to a 3D pic.