Which EDA (schematic/pcb) package do you use? (poll / discuss)

[WarSim]

One reason I use Altium is because it is the defacto standard in Australia. You have a better chance of employment in the Australian electronics scene if you know Altium.

I use Altium/Protel at work over the last 20 years but used Orcad for about 2 years. Orcad beats Altium hands down for easy and simple component library management and ease of use. But having only one level of CTRL-Z undo killed Orcad in my opinion.

Altium is powerful but it is a mess with updates, vaults, libraries, add-ons and other gobblygook. Why can you simply enter a part number on Altium's website and download its footprint and symbol and 3D model as a package, without all the other you have to go through? I don't want every bloody TI regulator component ever made, I just want a LM317DCY symbol, footprint and 3D model!

The menus should be rewritten. For example where is the logic in having CHANGING the grids under "VIEW"? And the options, preferences and settings are all over the shop. You should be able to just right click on a document setting (eg: DRN, CHK, TITLE etc) and just change it rather than going the long way around to modify it. Libraries... what a mess. Ever wondered why few have good component libraries? The standard footprints from Altium are crap. Mind you, the wizards to create component footprints are very good and they can be edited for smarter top overlay design once they are produced.

Anyone who has had to install licenses will also know it is convoluted. Altium are very helpful in helping you sort it out, but good design of such processes should be easy and self explanatory.

Despite the negatives (and there are quite a few), Altium does a great job overall as a CAD tool for designing quality PCB's - providing you make your own footprints and schematic symbols. I do enjoy the feeling of a new board arriving and just working without problems. The result should be artwork that should even make a deep impression on the likes of Claude Monet.

Yes very true Altium is the longstanding go to EDA for business.  I would like to mention the topic author asked about Hobby use.  The price tag for Altium is just way to high for most peoples hobby use. 

[Ribster]

I'm surprised by the number of Altium users. I suppose most of you guys are using it commercially.

Hehehehehe 

[dannyf]

Yes very true Altium is the longstanding go to EDA for business.

Probably not. I have used Protel from their DOS days and still have a copy of Protel99 around. The last Protel I touched is DXP 2004.

Looking around, I see Pulsonix, OrCAD, PowerPCB, Spectra mostly and no Altium. and I would think Mentor, Zuken and Cadence are there in terms of market shares, ahead of Altium.

[dannyf]

As to Protel's popularity, I would attribute it to its (relatively) low prices.

[free_electron]

A place I worked at still uses Visula on SunOS 9.  Now that is old school

 
still ... could have been Viewdraw under Sunos... or EMC ... although that was more to do layout of hybrids... Ran on the old Sun micro pizzaboxes. needed half an hour to load...

[Prime73]

Yep I was wrong Cocoa is still here, it was Objective C that got changed to Swift.

Objective C is still there and it wasn't changed to Swift.
Swift is a new language Apple introduced this year.
you can use both in your projects however we stick to C++/Objective C for now


Back on topic I use Eagle Pro and find if sufficient for my needs.

Also Adobe has something new: http://www.123dapp.com/circuits

[jaxbird]

I use Eagle, and while it's UI design is totally non standard, it does get the job done and it's very stable, plus it supports advanced plugin programming.

I've tried KiCad, but I'm not convinced it's yet worth the time needed to get familiar with all it's features.

I feel that free vs. reasonably low cost (hobby) does not make much difference when taking into consideration the amount of time you need to invest in a product to use it fluently. And I really don't care whether it's open or closed source.

[tycz]

I've been using PCB Elegance since it was released as free software in 2012. It's has the best user interface of all the EDA packages I've used. It's about on par with Eagle in terms of features. Prior to this I used mostly Protel and Altium.

I noticed the old website has expired so I'm now hosting the files myself.

http://etim.net.au/pcbelegance

[microbug]

'Totally non standard' ?? read 'crap'. My time with eagle was short and painful.

[drtaylor]

@drtaylor looking at the mccad website makes my skin crawl! '4 decades of experience'; the interface looks 3 decades old. Osmond PCB looks quite good though.

I totally agree. McCad's interface is way out of date. The PCB package is hopelessly low resolution and I would never use it. But I still use the schematics capture...easy to use and very easy to design new component symbols to look the way I want them to. I doubt any new dev has been done at McCad for years.

Osmond PCB supports multiple grids and very fine resolution. It does not have an autorouter but I've never liked the results of those anyway, especially for precision analog design that I specialize in. I cannot praise it enough for bang for the buck.

[snipersquad100]

How many polls do we need in a year? Here is the previous one:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/2014-pcb-cad-preferences/

Maybe we should run a poll to see how many polls we should run lol.

[WarSim]

I agree with Osmund sofar it seems great value.  And you suggestion did lead me to my choice of DesignWorks. Thanks. 

I have only found very few auto routers that I think was worth the time and effort to set up.  Because the cheapest one was over $5000.  I doubt I will be using one ever again. 

[miguelvp]

How many polls do we need in a year? Here is the previous one:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/2014-pcb-cad-preferences/

Maybe we should run a poll to see how many polls we should run lol.

You don't need a poll, it's usually started by kicad peeps, on the previous one there where 16 but now 18 so I reckon they'll run another 16 polls

[WarSim]

How many polls do we need in a year? Here is the previous one:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/2014-pcb-cad-preferences/

Maybe we should run a poll to see how many polls we should run lol.

Don't be hasty.  We should have a poll on weather we should have a poll on your suggestion to have a poll on how many polls we should run. 

[snipersquad100]

Now that would be silly lol

[Rigby]

Autorouters aren't very good because the algorithms behind them aren't perfect.  Autorouting is full of little problems that are intractible.  They can't be solved perfectly in a reasonable amount of time, or at all, in some cases, with a computer. 

This is why routing is accurately described as an art form, as there are no known algorithms that can do it better than an experienced human except in cases where the only directions that traces are allowed to travel are horizontal and vertical. 

Don't ever expect autorouters to get really good.

[ovnr]

Another Ultiboard/Multisim user here. Yup, it's weird in some ways, but I'm used to it and it works fine for anything I do. I've tried Altium but didn't really get into it, plus I'd hate to recreate my 500+ part library in a different package.

(Biggest hate for Ultiboard boils down to that their SSOP28 package was completely wrong and ruined a batch of boards for me - after that I stopped using the built-in libs for anything but pin headers and TH resistors... and even those are kinda iffy. On the flip side, I've gotten pretty damn good at making new library parts!)

[zapta]

Autorouters aren't very good because the algorithms behind them aren't perfect.  Autorouting is full of little problems that are intractible.  They can't be solved perfectly in a reasonable amount of time, or at all, in some cases, with a computer. 

Autorouting is not necessarily an all or nothing thing. I route manually the critical nets and let the eagle autorouter do the rest.  Works great for me (I don't care about the aesthetics of the tracks, just functionality).

This is why routing is accurately described as an art form, as there are no known algorithms that can do it better than an experienced human except in cases where the only directions that traces are allowed to travel are horizontal and vertical. 

On the other hand it's cheaper to clone an auto router than an experienced human, for example for my home projects.  ;-)

BTW, AFAIK, the complexity of auto routing is independent on the direction constraints. Once you figure out the topology of the tracks, there are efficient algorithms to generate any-angle, octilinear  or rectilinear tracks subject to design rules.  below is an example, (a) is the topology represented as rubber bands and zero spacing, (b) is any-angle with spacing enforced and (c) is the rectilinear design.  Conversion in the other direction to topology is trivial.

[VK3DRB]

Autorouters aren't very good because the algorithms behind them aren't perfect.  Autorouting is full of little problems that are intractible.  They can't be solved perfectly in a reasonable amount of time, or at all, in some cases, with a computer. 

Autorouting is not necessarily an all or nothing thing. I route manually the critical nets and let the eagle autorouter do the rest.  Works great for me (I don't care about the aesthetics of the tracks, just functionality).

Autorouting selected sections is quite handy when you, for example, want to limit vias on a 2 layer board. As for the aesthetics of tracks, autorouters are generally crap. But I occasionally get hints from an autorouter, but I would always clean up autorouter mess up on the rare occasion I would use it. I am not saying it is wrong to have sloppy artwork at hobbyist level, but at my workplace sloppy track layout work is clearly unacceptable.

[Zeyneb]

Hi all,

I'm a happy user of Pulsonix. The way the library is constructed in categories: Symbols, Footprints and Parts; Is something I like.

However I construct every footprint with a separate tool: PCB Library Expert

This tool enables me to create decent IPC-7351 compliant footprints. I can import these in Pulsonix.

 

[DrRich]

Proteus at work now, I really like it.

Used Protel 99SE and Zuken Cadstar in the past. Tried Eagle, but the UI drives me insane.

[IO390]

I use Proteus. Got it free from college. I tried KiCAD but I'm used to Proteus so it was a bit pointless. You can make a netlist on a PCB layout without making a schematic, which is nice as I often don't bother with schematics for simple stuff and familiar components.

[MadScientist]

Professionally, and for my hobby use I use diptrace. I was surprised at how popular it was here. Up there with altium and eagle etc.

[hammy]

Target 3001 v17