Author Topic: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)  (Read 63454 times)

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Offline JamesH-AltiumOfficial

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #50 on: October 02, 2020, 12:45:38 am »
But how do you do that?
I looked the other day and couldn't figure out how to "reorder" maintenance from within the software. I could order a new license though.
Hi H.O. Please send me a PM with your email address if you'd like me to help you with this.
On the Licensing screen, the system will sometimes offer the "Renew" option adjacent to your license. However this will only be available if the system has enough information about your account and there are no ambiguities.
In your case, since you're not seeing this option, I will contact Element14 to ask them to help you to get your order processed.

Best regards,
James Harriman
Alitum
 
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Offline negativ3

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #51 on: October 11, 2020, 03:26:29 am »
To me, it's bizarre they don't just utilise the Altium Designer core and cripple certain aspects depending on the level purchased and whether subs are ongoing.
It seems the likes of Solidworks integration may be a focus for non-core Altium resources and as a user of Solidworks, I don't "need" PCB integration but I do appreciate the ability to cross-pollenate modelling.

The cost of CS was/is attractive but the lack of updates and UI/feature refinement is not at a level expected for such an offering. Free maybe but then look at the life cycle of a kicad release. I may be comparing crayons with technical pens tho.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #52 on: October 11, 2020, 11:39:23 am »
To me, it's bizarre they don't just utilise the Altium Designer core and cripple certain aspects depending on the level purchased and whether subs are ongoing.

This may still stem  from the old "turning the world of electronics design upside down" marketing campaign (and even before that) when they bet the company that FPGA was the future, and they actually made the PCB tool optional extra  :palm:
They knew that people just wanted the basic PCB tool and didn't want the FPGA, modular design or programming stuff , but because they had sold the investors on this vision (and believed in it) they couldn't go with a "buy just what you need licensing model" because then that would could expose the FPGA/modular design dream as something nobody wanted, as sales for those modules would be near zero. So they had to stick to the "all you can eat" pricing model to force uses to pay for the whole thing to get basic PCB functionality.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090311063044/http://fpgajournal.com/articles_2007/20070619_altium.htm

Now that all that hoopla is long gone, it might still be relevant, because if you have to pay for various extra tools, then you quickly find out where your bread and butter income comes from. That's useful, but sometimes you are better off not knowing when it comes to a company growth perspective. e.g. if you find out 90%+ of your customers only need a basic $2000 core tool, then it might be hard to sell all the money spent on developing new bells and whistles to the investors.
It's a tough call, but I don't blame them for sticking with the "all you can eat" pricing model.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2020, 11:41:55 am by EEVblog »
 

Offline negativ3

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #53 on: October 11, 2020, 05:15:02 pm »
To me, it's bizarre they don't just utilise the Altium Designer core and cripple certain aspects depending on the level purchased and whether subs are ongoing.

It's a tough call, but I don't blame them for sticking with the "all you can eat" pricing model.

It is understandable given most corps are bean counter driven, and if Circuitmaker Pro is a "slice" of Designer, that would even make transferring knowledge between program use even more intuitive.
 

Offline jamiechi

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #54 on: November 03, 2020, 07:16:22 am »
I am still unclear whether I should get Circuit Studio. It is selling at Newark for $495. (version 1.5 I think)
I have several years experience with Protel and Altium.
Or should I go with Diptrace?
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #55 on: November 03, 2020, 11:39:14 am »
I am still unclear whether I should get Circuit Studio. It is selling at Newark for $495. (version 1.5 I think)
I have several years experience with Protel and Altium.
Or should I go with Diptrace?

Between those, I'd go with Circuit Studio, it will be ore familiar (and likely more capable?)
 

Offline olkipukki

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #56 on: November 05, 2020, 09:48:56 pm »
I am still unclear whether I should get Circuit Studio. It is selling at Newark for $495. (version 1.5 I think)
I have several years experience with Protel and Altium.
Or should I go with Diptrace?

Try DipTrace for free, you can always spend $$$ on Circuit Studio as the last resort.
The tool is not for everyone and will required a bit adjustment in mindset, but as the rule a thumb once your know any CAD, just matter of time if you want adopt to something else :)

Alternative, perhaps consider something that might be useful later https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/orcad-price-drop/
 

Offline jamiechi

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #57 on: November 08, 2020, 03:40:35 pm »
Thanks for the suggestions. I think I will go with Circuit Studio. Easier to stick with what I know. (I tried Orcad once but hated the user interface.)
« Last Edit: November 08, 2020, 03:43:54 pm by jamiechi »
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #58 on: December 04, 2020, 01:37:36 am »
I saw CS to be like a mini AD,  but I am no expert. My choice is KiCAD. However, I would like to ask what are the main features and reasons to get CS? I mean, Altium must have had a market idea about it... right?

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #59 on: December 04, 2020, 02:13:23 am »
I saw CS to be like a mini AD,  but I am no expert. My choice is KiCAD. However, I would like to ask what are the main features and reasons to get CS? I mean, Altium must have had a market idea about it... right?

Nope, they didn't.
As I understand it Element 14 approached Altium for a PCB package to sell so Altium created CS specifically for them.
 
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Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #60 on: December 04, 2020, 09:15:44 am »
I saw CS to be like a mini AD,  but I am no expert. My choice is KiCAD. However, I would like to ask what are the main features and reasons to get CS? I mean, Altium must have had a market idea about it... right?

Nope, they didn't.
As I understand it Element 14 approached Altium for a PCB package to sell so Altium created CS specifically for them.

Well, is it that simple? I mean the effort and so on to make a pcb package and maintain it...

it is about 500$ so not so cheap. I thought about asking those who bought it why they did despite stuff like kicad exist.

Very little youtube videos about it too

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #61 on: December 04, 2020, 09:53:17 am »
I saw CS to be like a mini AD,  but I am no expert. My choice is KiCAD. However, I would like to ask what are the main features and reasons to get CS? I mean, Altium must have had a market idea about it... right?

Nope, they didn't.
As I understand it Element 14 approached Altium for a PCB package to sell so Altium created CS specifically for them.

Well, is it that simple? I mean the effort and so on to make a pcb package and maintain it...

It's probably not much work, it was just Altium stripped down. Element 14 is a big customer will a lot of pull.
And I don't think they did much maintenance on it  ;D
 

Offline Warhawk

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #62 on: December 04, 2020, 10:02:25 am »
I saw CS to be like a mini AD,  but I am no expert. My choice is KiCAD. However, I would like to ask what are the main features and reasons to get CS? I mean, Altium must have had a market idea about it... right?

Nope, they didn't.
As I understand it Element 14 approached Altium for a PCB package to sell so Altium created CS specifically for them.

Well, is it that simple? I mean the effort and so on to make a pcb package and maintain it...

it is about 500$ so not so cheap. I thought about asking those who bought it why they did despite stuff like kicad exist.

Very little youtube videos about it too

I think the price was way higher when they released it. Then there was a chicken fight between Eagle (Autodesk) and Circuit Maker (Altium) and the price went down significantly.
Ultimately both parties failed in their own way and many hobbyists and even professionals moved to KiCad. I was seriously considering Circuit Studio but I am happy that it was about
the time I moved to Linux and KiCad was the only choice. Sure, it has many quirks but at least it is in active development with the community growing.


Edit: Holy moly, Altium has really schizophrenia !
https://resources.altium.com/p/coming-soon-altium-circuitmaker-pror
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 10:04:35 am by Warhawk »
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #63 on: December 04, 2020, 10:53:01 am »
I saw CS to be like a mini AD,  but I am no expert. My choice is KiCAD. However, I would like to ask what are the main features and reasons to get CS? I mean, Altium must have had a market idea about it... right?

Nope, they didn't.
As I understand it Element 14 approached Altium for a PCB package to sell so Altium created CS specifically for them.

Well, is it that simple? I mean the effort and so on to make a pcb package and maintain it...

it is about 500$ so not so cheap. I thought about asking those who bought it why they did despite stuff like kicad exist.

Very little youtube videos about it too

I think the price was way higher when they released it.

Yes, it was $990 for several years.
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #64 on: December 04, 2020, 05:26:50 pm »
I remember it being about that 1000$ price, but yes it kept getting lower and lower.

I was digging today and found people complain that it doesn't have panelization feature... is this correct?

Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #65 on: December 04, 2020, 06:37:29 pm »
I was digging today and found people complain that it doesn't have panelization feature... is this correct?

It does, sorta, kinda...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/circuit-studio/video-circuitstudio-panel-layout/
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #66 on: December 04, 2020, 08:23:56 pm »
I was digging today and found people complain that it doesn't have panelization feature... is this correct?

It does, sorta, kinda...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/circuit-studio/video-circuitstudio-panel-layout/

You need a copy of AD to do this?! and yet it is manual stuff after that. Even KiCAD does it better despite doing it manually too by making an array.

I think CS must support this feature if it is a "professional" tool.

Offline kaz911

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #67 on: December 09, 2020, 12:27:03 pm »
any news on release?
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #68 on: December 09, 2020, 11:58:45 pm »
any news on release?
looks like it is dead as people here say. I am sure the official account will come and say it is not dead..etc. I hope they focus on this software since it is really nice.

I'd prefer if they have a feature request page or something. I am using kicad for now  but if i am going to get CS one day, the feature that I want is a fully automated panelization. I don't think I need to pay 500$ or so for a software then do the exact same effort I do with a free one to do the same job.

When they say "Professional", then it should have such important features... at least in my book.

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #69 on: December 10, 2020, 01:56:29 am »
any news on release?
looks like it is dead as people here say. I am sure the official account will come and say it is not dead..etc. I hope they focus on this software since it is really nice.

I'd prefer if they have a feature request page or something. I am using kicad for now  but if i am going to get CS one day, the feature that I want is a fully automated panelization. I don't think I need to pay 500$ or so for a software then do the exact same effort I do with a free one to do the same job.

When they say "Professional", then it should have such important features... at least in my book.

I didn't know CS didn't have panelisation, I just assumed it did, that's pretty basic stuff!
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #70 on: December 10, 2020, 06:54:30 am »
any news on release?
looks like it is dead as people here say. I am sure the official account will come and say it is not dead..etc. I hope they focus on this software since it is really nice.

I'd prefer if they have a feature request page or something. I am using kicad for now  but if i am going to get CS one day, the feature that I want is a fully automated panelization. I don't think I need to pay 500$ or so for a software then do the exact same effort I do with a free one to do the same job.

When they say "Professional", then it should have such important features... at least in my book.

I didn't know CS didn't have panelisation, I just assumed it did, that's pretty basic stuff!

see? I was thinking like you until I found out.

I was searching how to do it in kicad but thought about CS, I found a video of someone doing it manually using an embedded array from AD.

Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #71 on: December 10, 2020, 09:11:19 am »
I already linked the relevant thread.
The file attached there is all you new need, its just a file with an embedded board array  :-//
 

Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #72 on: December 10, 2020, 09:15:02 am »
There is a new version of CS on the way, rebranded and with new features.
I think the sensible thing would be to wait and test that to see if it suits your needs.
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #73 on: December 11, 2020, 03:51:00 pm »
There is a new version of CS on the way, rebranded and with new features.
I think the sensible thing would be to wait and test that to see if it suits your needs.

You mean circuitmaker pro? we still don't know about it and this is too a bad thing since multiple major changes doesn't mean stability.

but you are correct, we need to wait and see. but when will this happen if you know?

how can we request certain features like panelization?

Offline negativ3

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Re: Circuit Studio Dead? (again!)
« Reply #74 on: January 21, 2021, 09:49:45 am »
I wonder if CS owners will get access to Circuitmaker Pro or is a Altium shaped shaft approaching again?
 


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