*EasyEDA - Web based EDA official support topic*

[dillon]

Hi,
 This is Dillon, co-founder of http://easyeda.com. Thanks to Dave and Mrs EEVblog spread EasyEDA to the world http://www.eevblog.com/2014/04/22/eevblog-606-mailbag/. EasyEDA got more +200 registered users in two days, lots of them have created awesome designs.

So, we think some users will ask something, we are listening at here.

[jucole]

Very impressive online tool!   is there any information on fabrication prices / capabilities?

I read your "about us" but to be honest I didn't really understand your logic for creating the EDA tool from what you wrote;  you say you developed the EDA tool because you were hardware hackers building some hardware and didn't want to spend money / time learning a commercial package;  so instead you and your team spent 3 years and a half years creating your own.   But if that was true surely contributing that many hours to maybe the KiCAD project would have made more sense?

[GiskardReventlov]

I gave it a quick try and I found it pretty easy to use. I couldn't figure out how to delete a line I made but I only spent minutes.  I do think it's a solid tool.  It's more intuitive than kicad for me.

@jucole, with language barriers, geographic barriers, etc. contributing to kicad would probably have been a very frustrating experience. That's not even including personalities.

You should (if you don't already) consider selling easyeda, because I would rather run it hosted locally than over the internet.  And consider making it opensource so that others could contribute and survey the code.

Ironically the main website crashed my browser but easyeda never crashed.

[dillon]

Very impressive online tool!   is there any information on fabrication prices / capabilities?

Check it via http://easyeda.com/cms_files_easyeda-pcb-fabrication-prices-capabilities.htm

I read your "about us" but to be honest I didn't really understand your logic for creating the EDA tool from what you wrote;  you say you developed the EDA tool because you were hardware hackers building some hardware and didn't want to spend money / time learning a commercial package;  so instead you and your team spent 3 years and a half years creating your own.   But if that was true surely contributing that many hours to maybe the KiCAD project would have made more sense?

We are sure we have checked KiCad, it is good enough. But it is hard to use. Most important, most of desktop software will be replaced by Browser or App.

BTW, EasyEDA can import all of the Kicad Libs.
Thanks.

Dillon

[dillon]

I gave it a quick try and I found it pretty easy to use. I couldn't figure out how to delete a line I made but I only spent minutes.  I do think it's a solid tool.  It's more intuitive than kicad for me.

Select it, then press the DEL key. BTW.

 

@jucole, with language barriers, geographic barriers, etc. contributing to kicad would probably have been a very frustrating experience. That's not even including personalities.

You should (if you don't already) consider selling easyeda, because I would rather run it hosted locally than over the internet.  And consider making it opensource so that others could contribute and survey the code.

 All the best softwares are not open source, except Linux.  We are about to make EasyEDA opensource, check http://easyeda.com/cms_files_a-letter-from-the-easyeda-team.htm

Ironically the main website crashed my browser but easyeda never crashed.

EasyEDA is strong, and EasyEDA has a good Crash Recovery .

Dillon
Thanks.

[EEVblog]

You should (if you don't already) consider selling easyeda, because I would rather run it hosted locally than over the internet.

And that is the problem with all these new web based EDA tools (how many of them are there now?). No professional would (or in many cases is allowed to) trust their EDA to an internet connection.

[EEVblog]

All the best softwares are not open source, except Linux.  We are about to make EasyEDA opensource, check http://easyeda.com/cms_files_a-letter-from-the-easyeda-team.htm

That's cool 

[GiskardReventlov]

Select it, then press the DEL key. BTW.

That was what I tried first.

We are about to make EasyEDA opensource, check

I read that as "you will go opensource if you're current business model doesn't generate revenue to support the team." So you're not announcing that you're going opensource. You are saying that it's possible that you will go opensource. But it seems that the opensource business model that works is the one that does both. You have commercial offering and also an opensource product.  So really you should already have your product for sale and have it opensource.  Trying to make your business model work may tire out your team.

I think there are some people here that can attest to that model working for them and their companies.

This should appeal to teachers for sure:

"A10: All teachers can have a lifetime VIP account (subject to verification of your educational status), and they can get free PCBs from EasyEDA for their public projects now."

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

I had a bit of a problem with the delete key too.
I had to select an area to delete instead of a segment, even though the segment was highlighted.

Also the arrow keys seem to work a bit randomly, sometimes ok, at least half the time do nothing?

Using firefox latest on windows.

It does look very well organised and intuitive.

We are sure we have checked KiCad, it is good enough. But it is hard to use. Most important, most of desktop software will be replaced by Browser or App.

Not sure which fortune teller you have asked this question too, but I really doubt it, especially for EDA and most other large screen apps for producing propriety designs.

What is an App anyway? just desktop software on a small screen.

[dillon]

And that is the problem with all these new web based EDA tools (how many of them are there now?). No professional would (or in many cases is allowed to) trust their EDA to an internet connection.

It is excited that Mr eevblog give this a reply. Do you know EasyEDA can work in offline? Try to shut down your network and open http://easyeda.com/editor again. Depending on internet is bad, but check your design every device is awesome.

EasyEDA is not for every one we know,  we are sure we have a great target users. Now EasyEDA has 1000+ users, 3 PCB orders. A user used EasyEDA every day for the last 30 days, and he ordered a complex PCB with 1100+ Pads.

Thanks.

Dillon

[dillon]

Select it, then press the DEL key. BTW.

That was what I tried first.

We are about to make EasyEDA opensource, check

I read that as "you will go opensource if you're current business model doesn't generate revenue to support the team." So you're not announcing that you're going opensource. You are saying that it's possible that you will go opensource. But it seems that the opensource business model that works is the one that does both. You have commercial offering and also an opensource product.  So really you should already have your product for sale and have it opensource.  Trying to make your business model work may tire out your team.

I think there are some people here that can attest to that model working for them and their companies.

This should appeal to teachers for sure:

"A10: All teachers can have a lifetime VIP account (subject to verification of your educational status), and they can get free PCBs from EasyEDA for their public projects now."

Now, can you delete your wire? It is a bit litter hard to select a wire,we will make it better.

EasyEDA will be Ads supported free EDA tool, just like eevblog. We talk about open source,  it makes our early birds trust all of their designs will keep when we can't run the company. Every one can installed EasyEDA in their computer.

Yes, we are sure we will provide free PCB for all open source hardware projects later, we provide free PCB for teachers now, it seems we can't find the teachers

[dillon]

I had a bit of a problem with the delete key too.
I had to select an area to delete instead of a segment, even though the segment was highlighted.

Also the arrow keys seem to work a bit randomly, sometimes ok, at least half the time do nothing?

Using firefox latest on windows.

It does look very well organised and intuitive.

We are sure we have checked KiCad, it is good enough. But it is hard to use. Most important, most of desktop software will be replaced by Browser or App.

Not sure which fortune teller you have asked this question too, but I really doubt it, especially for EDA and most other large screen apps for producing propriety designs.

What is an App anyway? just desktop software on a small screen.

Two guys have problems in deleting , I am sure there are some problems, but we can't reproduce this problem, we are Firefox fans, we test a lot under Firefox and Chrome. Can you get me more infromation? Do you zoom in your canvas big enough? Thanks.

App is not good for EDA, but browser will be excellent for EDA. We need some time.

Thanks.

Dillon

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

I worked my issue out, not actually a bug but a UI misunderstanding.

I was hovering over a net and it glowed red. At this point the net is not selected, so you can't delete this.

If you then select the net and the nodes go green then the del key works.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Further thoughts.

Also if you try to select a node without the net already selected, it doesn't select.

You should be able to select a node and get something, either whole net or just node.

So new users pay attention to what is selected. The nodes go green in the middle when selected.

I am not sure you need to highlight the net 'on hover', especially when another net is currently selected.

Quite easy to draw stuff in this package, I think I will experiment further and will probably use it to at least draw quick schematics.


If I get time I will try some stuff in the simulator.

[dillon]

Further thoughts.

Also if you try to select a node without the net already selected, it doesn't select.

You should be able to select a node and get something, either whole net or just node.

So new users pay attention to what is selected. The nodes go green in the middle when selected.

I am not sure you need to highlight the net 'on hover', especially when another net is currently selected.

Quite easy to draw stuff in this package, I think I will experiment further and will probably use it to at least draw quick schematics.


If I get time I will try some stuff in the simulator.

'on hover' is a state which tell the user that he can click and select the objects.

Thanks for giving a deep test. and let me know the next idea.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Maybe have a different colour for selectable, and selected then.
Currently both red.

[dillon]

Maybe have a different colour for selectable, and selected then.
Currently both red.

Seems good, add it to TODO list. Thanks.

[GiskardReventlov]

Now, can you delete your wire? It is a bit litter hard to select a wire,we will make it better.

I spent very little time at it and it may be that I didn't have the wire selected as mentioned in the other post.

EasyEDA will be Ads supported free EDA tool, just like eevblog. We talk about open source,  it makes our early birds trust all of their designs will keep when we can't run the company. Every one can installed EasyEDA in their computer.

If the designs can be saved in a portable format then people will be able to use them in another package. Is your format portable?

Yes, we are sure we will provide free PCB for all open source hardware projects later, we provide free PCB for teachers now, it seems we can't find the teachers

Not sure if ads will support free PCBs but it's an ambitious goal.

There are at least a couple of teachers in these forums.
Thanks for taking time to answer here.

[Mechatrommer]

Most important, most of desktop software will be replaced by Browser or App.

oh really? the Opera i have is crawling, IE8 crashed, let alone your online App (which lets net lines in schematics transformed into rat nests when i drag a component)...

[dillon]

Now, can you delete your wire? It is a bit litter hard to select a wire,we will make it better.

I spent very little time at it and it may be that I didn't have the wire selected as mentioned in the other post.

EasyEDA will be Ads supported free EDA tool, just like eevblog. We talk about open source,  it makes our early birds trust all of their designs will keep when we can't run the company. Every one can installed EasyEDA in their computer.

If the designs can be saved in a portable format then people will be able to use them in another package. Is your format portable?

Yes, we are sure we will provide free PCB for all open source hardware projects later, we provide free PCB for teachers now, it seems we can't find the teachers

Not sure if ads will support free PCBs but it's an ambitious goal.

There are at least a couple of teachers in these forums.
Thanks for taking time to answer here.

Is your format portable? Yes. You can use a notepad to create a PCB project or schematic project. It is Ascii and opened. Check the EasyEDA source

How I can let the teachers know EasyEDA's free PCB service ?

Thanks your time too.
Dillon

[Bored@Work]

Most important, most of desktop software will be replaced by Browser or App.

Don't be so sure, young whippersnapper. I hear that since 15 years or longer. Still it is in the same category of "Linux will take over the desktop". Slow progress, but long away from being true.

[dillon]

Most important, most of desktop software will be replaced by Browser or App.

Don't be so sure, young whippersnapper. I hear that since 15 years or longer. Still it is in the same category of "Linux will take over the desktop". Slow progress, but long away from being true.

Thanks. This is just a willing. Maybe you should wait another 15 years .

[firewalker]

The funny thing is that GNU/Linux took over everything else. From coffee makers to military equipment.

Alexander.

[dillon]

The funny thing is that GNU/Linux took over everything else. From coffee makers to military equipment.

Alexander.

Please talk about http://easyeda.com/ 

[signality]

EasyEDA tries to do a pretty good job of making a complicated tool simple to use but even so it is well worthwhile having a read through the EasyEDA Tutorial which can be reached through this page:

http://easyeda.com/cms_files_how-to-use-easyeda.htm

or via the i > Help Topics menu on the top toolbar.

Context sensitive help can be reached via the ?Help button in any dialogue box.

Yeah, I know. Blokes and asking for directions, rtfm and all that but what the heck: if it saves time.

[Bored@Work]

The funny thing is that GNU/Linux took over everything else. From coffee makers to military equipment.

Alexander.

Please talk about http://easyeda.com/ 

Ok. It does not run on Linux. On-topic enough for your taste?

[firewalker]

One thing that I would like to see is right click menus.

Is it possible to pop-out the schematic editor? PCB layout is typically a multi screen process.  It would be nice to have to schematic on a separate screen.

Tested on Firefox 28 on GNU/Linux (ArchLinux).

Alexander.

[firewalker]

BTW I loved the really simple account creation method.

Alexander.

[firewalker]

Errors should contain some infos.



Alexander.

[dillon]

One thing that I would like to see is right click menus.

Is it possible to pop-out the schematic editor? PCB layout is typically a multi screen process.  It would be nice to have to schematic on a separate screen.

Tested on Firefox 28 on GNU/Linux (ArchLinux).

Alexander.

We are not plan to support right click menus now, because we should make this product easy, we don't know how to create functions for this menu. You know we have lots of Hotkeys.

Your firefox support many separated Tabs, so you can open as many http://easyeda.com/editor as you want.
A tab for schematic, a tab for PCB, A tab for lib, .......

Thanks.

[dillon]

Errors should contain some infos.



Alexander.

This is unexpected error, I hope can remember what you have done just now.

Dillon

[dillon]

Errors should contain some infos.

This is unexpected error, I hope can remember what you have done just now.

even though i have no objection with what happened (generic error handling, i understand with newly developed SW) but placing flag number might help developer to narrow the plethora of unexpected errors. just my 2cnts.

Got it. Thanks.

[eenewbies]

Awesome online EDA tool! Love the UI, will try it out ASAP.  Thanks.

[eenewbies]

My test schematic, Like it now.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Yeah but...

[nctnico]

The realtime DRC (check for clearance) seems to be missing. It looks like a lot of work went into it. It's a pity that effort wasn't directed towards improving Kicad. From all the open source electronics design packages Kicad seems to have the largest momentum (being aided by CERN).

[dillon]

The realtime DRC (check for clearance) seems to be missing. It looks like a lot of work went into it. It's a pity that effort wasn't directed towards improving Kicad. From all the open source electronics design packages Kicad seems to have the largest momentum (being aided by CERN).

Realtime DRC is on the road.  Building an EDA software is hard, web based EDA is harder than desktop software.

Kicad is good, but not easy. EasyEDA will try to change something.

Thanks to give http://easyeda.com a try.

[nctnico]

You could change Kicad and make it easier to use. That is the beauty of open source. Kicad is based on the WxWidgets framework. Appearantly there have been some efforts to use a webserver as a WxWidgets backend (*) to render the screen so an application can also be used in a webbrowser.

(*) WxWidgets is split in a frontend (the API) and a backend which takes care of rendering the screen, receiving input and handling OS specific stuff.

[jimjam]

I've just tried easyeda and it is quite nice. I posted a question here about Kicad and I'm wondering about the same thing with easyeda.

Say I have this circuit:

Code: [Select]

-----||------||-----
     C1      C2
Basically, two capacitors connected to each other in series (as an example). When I moved C2 further apart to the right, how can I make it so the connection between C1 and C2 stays so I don't have to re-wire it?

[jimjam]

Suggestion: implement "Search feature" in the "Explore" section. I assume I can browse around, clone a project (do I have to clone it?) and order a PCB based on that design? It would be handy if you could include the components too

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

press 'g' first and release. then you are in drag mode, then drag one of the caps.

[jimjam]

press 'g' first and release. then you are in drag mode, then drag one of the caps.

THANK YOU! That works with Kicad too!

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Lol, I thought you meant Kicad.

[dillon]

I've just tried easyeda and it is quite nice. I posted a question here about Kicad and I'm wondering about the same thing with easyeda.

Say I have this circuit:

Code: [Select]

-----||------||-----
     C1      C2
Basically, two capacitors connected to each other in series (as an example). When I moved C2 further apart to the right, how can I make it so the connection between C1 and C2 stays so I don't have to re-wire it?

Maybe this is a good feature. I will keep it to our long TODO list

[boz]

Hi Guys

Just thought I'd chip in my 10 cents worth..

I have no affiliation with EasyEDA other than as a user but I've been using EasyEDA for 3 months now and have had 5 PCB's made using it, one of which is in production, I was a bit sceptical at first but now I am sold, it just works and it works really well.

I have used the free version and then a paid version of Eagle for the last 7 years, about 9 months ago I had to create a 160mm x 20mm board for some LEDs and eagle wouldn't let me without paying US$495 (and I could not upgrade my basic licence so no discount!) I eventually used KiCad for this and decided to then migrate to KiCad, however I never really got the hang of the KiCad UI and libraries and kept going back to Eagle. (More a fault with me than with Kicad I guess)

I was a bit sceptical of on-line CAD tools for the same reason Dave was but I was stuck at an airport for several hours a few months back and saw the article on dangerous prototypes and gave it a go, basically I imported a complete eagle project into the system captured all my libraries and footprints without any problems, then I re-did the circuit and created a board all within a few hours.

It is weird not using the right-click after using eagle but it's actually very intuitive and you soon get the hang of it and the shortcut keys work really well, any problems I have had have been rectified almost immediately by the developers which I guess is because the user base is still quite small and there are still a few more promising enhancements in the pipeline such as version control.  The most recent version of the software is very stable on my browser, (chrome) and I would certainly recommend anyone using eagle to give this a go with a real project.

A little caveat here is that I have only made double sided boards which go down to 0.5mm SMT (probably about the limit for hobbyists), the quality and finish of the boards I got back was excellent and they are actually manufactured by seeed, both boards shown below were created and manufactured using EasyEDA, the photo quality and my build quality are not that great, the boards are much nicer in real life. I have not yet created anything more complicated than this eg BGA, 4-layer or 0.4mm pitch, but I do not see any reasons why it would not work as well as the ones below.

The development may not be open source (yet) but should the venture not work they have promised to ensure all your work can be exported to KiCad or other CAD packages and then give away the system for free. I cannot argue with this philosophy.

Boz

[dillon]

Thank you Boz, Never think you will spend lots of time to give a +1 comment at here.

The development may not be open source (yet) but should the venture not work they have promised to ensure all your work can be exported to KiCad or other CAD packages and then give away the system for free

We will provide API to allow everyone to export their projects to other EDA format in three months,  first to Kicad, Eagle , Then Altium Designer.  EasyEDA's file format is public, every one can use it.

Thanks

Dillon

[boz]

Thank you Boz, Never think you will spend lots of time to give a +1 comment at here.

No problem, Just saying it as it is, keep up the good work. 

[SirNick]

Interesting concept.  I imagine this has potential in the casual hobbyist space, and as a platform for (excuse the repurposed phrase) "social" engineering (you know, "hey look at my circuit..")  There is a bit of a hole in that market, so good on ya.   

Still, while I do see the trend of things moving to virtual computing (it's mainframes all over again), for serious applications, I think CAD is one of those things best tied to the native platform.  I.e., for Windows, build a native Windows app.  For Linux, build a Linux app.  etc. etc.  HTML, JS, Java... these things have their uses, but efficiency is not their forte.  When you get to big designs, it's hard enough to keep native software snappy, much less trying to achieve graphics-heavy performance with interpreted or JIT languages.

I couldn't be convinced to create a 1,000 pin design to prove this to myself, but I would be curious to see if you could pan and scroll a document that large, in a web browser environment, and not have to go on coffee breaks waiting for the screen to redraw.  Is there a demo to this effect?

[Bored@Work]

HTML, JS, Java... these things have their uses, but efficiency is not their forte.  When you get to big designs, it's hard enough to keep native software snappy,

Actually, for some time now good JITs reach the performance of native, e.g. completely compiled ahead of time, software.

There are several reasons software written with a language with an underlying JIT can still appear slower:

1. Startup time, size and other resources needed by the interpreter and JIT.

2. The overhead until a JIT has finally kicked in and done the job.

3. Sloppy written code.

much less trying to achieve graphics-heavy performance with interpreted or JIT languages.

Most electronics CAD stuff is not even graphics-heavy. Like rendering a schematic or a 2D PCB.

But lets say it is. The issue has become more and more an issue of hardware, aka GPUs, their specific APIs, like OpenGL, the language-specific binding of the API, and, once again, talent and skills of the programmer. It is typically not a problem of a JIT language.

To give you an example where JIT-based, graphics-heavy, code is routinely executed fast: Graphics-heavy games on Android. Java as a language, compiled to Java bytecode, then translated to Google's own Dalvik bytecode, plus, depending on the setup, also pre-compiled optimized Dalvik bytecode, executed on the phone by the Dalvik virtual machine, which has a JIT and might generate and cache optimized Dalvik bytecode on the fly.

Or to give an example where a completely ahead compiled EDA program is dead slow: KiCad schematics rendering. The reason for that is it is badly programmed. You don't have to have a JIT-language to write bad code. Even PCs in the 80th had enough CPU power to render these lines. AFAIK KiCad is now moving to OpenGL to speed things up.

[SirNick]

OK, schooled.