SolidWorks Electronics or others ? seeking recommendations

• SolidWorks Electronics or others ? seeking recommendations
  Posted by Tomer on 23 Mar, 2018 22:43
• Hi All.
  I am a beginner and would like to create schematics and to design PCB. I have a lot of experience with SolidWorks but not with the electrical module.
  
  My questions are:
  1) Does SolodWorks "Electrical Design" is a good choose for creating schematics and design PCB's ?
  2) Would you recommend a different tool/program ?
  
  Thank you for your help and knowledge !
  Tom
• #1 Reply
  Posted by rdl on 24 Mar, 2018 17:16
• It looks like something that is intended to plan electrical systems for buildings and factories, not something you would use to design pc boards.
• #2 Reply
  Posted by Tomer on 25 Mar, 2018 17:49
• Thank you for the replay
  Any recommendation for a suitable program ?
  
  Thanks
  Tom
• #3 Reply
  Posted by Farley on 25 Mar, 2018 18:00
• SolidWorks has a PCB design package which I believe is actually some flavor of Altium.
  https://www.solidworks.com/product/solidworks-pcb
  I've never used it.
  
  I use SolidWorks for mechanical design and DipTrace for PCB design. DipTrace will create STEP files that import into SolidWorks. It works quite well.
• #4 Reply
  Posted by trevers on 26 Mar, 2018 17:24
• If you truly are a beginner - http://fritzing.org/home/
  Free (as in beer) and very capable - http://kicad-pcb.org/
  Free (as a limited user) - https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/overview
  
  You probably did not get many answers for this as a simple search would have found the three that I mentioned above. IMHO all of the "ecad" packages from the major mcad vendors (PTC, Siemens, Dassault) (excluding Eagle) are not really intended for PCBs.
• #5 Reply
  Posted by ericasdf on 26 Mar, 2018 18:24
• SolidWorks PCB is a stripped down version of Altium. I do not know how stripped down it is, but when you start talking SolidWorks or Altium, you have to have fairly deep pockets. I use Altium for my day job and at home (the speed benefit pays for itself), and while I like it, it does have some quirks (and bugs). But I think that is common among all EDA packages; you will find things you love and things you will hate. If you are willing to spend some money, contact the vendors and get trials and demos of each before making your decision. If you want seamless integration into SolidWorks then either SolidWorks PCB or Altuim is your choice.
  
  Altium does have a free version https://circuitmaker.com/#why_circuitmaker. I have never used it so I can't comment on how good it is.
  
  I have coworkers that use KiCad and DipTrace and love them. Eagle is a popular one, but I find it very unintuitive.