Altium and Eagle, advices on particular situation

[Yaroooo]

I've used Eagle for a while, while my company used Protel99. Now we're in front of problems facing with Protel99 respect on newer program layouts, stability and compatibility.

In addition we've an Altium 09 key (only one and standalone without subscription), but as I can see without tutorials or documentations aviable online (Altium starts from 15th).

We've recived a proposal for altium 19, an initial amount plus annual that's not affordable by our company and the use we'll do.

I'd like to ask, EAGLE 9 respect to Altium 9, which difference have?

We like Protel autoplacer and autorouter, also we'd like a 3D generator of PCB (or import housing dimensions) to see components size.

Does Autodesk added 3D features to Eagle 9?
There's an autoplacer/autorouter similar like Protel in Eagle 9?

What we're worry about, it's to continue to use a software that we'll not able to afford in future and may become old.

While Eagle, 4 layer, will allow us to use this software, always updated, for years.

What are your opinions?

[martin1454]

IMO. look at kicad - Free to use, 3D models / step files for your PCB, open source and can import your old Eagle files.

I use Altium at my job, but I would personally never pay that much money if im only making a pcb now and then - Sure Altium is nice, but Kicad does 90% of the things Altium does.

[Yaroooo]

The problem is that main projects are all in Protel. So import from Protel to another software that isn't Altium is difficult or impossible. That's why we're stucked about this choice.

[DerekG]

The problem is that main projects are all in Protel.

I have licenses for Protel, Altium 6.9 & DipTrace. I also use Altium 14 for work.

I mainly use DipTrace these days .............. because I find it intuitive & I "just like it".

The good news is that You can import & export both Protel & Altium schematics into & out of DipTrace.

Just a thought.

[Kasper]

If you want altium for cheaper, circuit studio is worth looking at.  Not sure about yours but some versions of altium should be able to convert files to circuit studio.

[jmelson]

The problem is that main projects are all in Protel. So import from Protel to another software that isn't Altium is difficult or impossible. That's why we're stucked about this choice.

Do you still have your Protel 99 license and disk?  If you are finding it unreliable, try running it on either XP or Win 7 in a virtual machine.
I run Linux on my desktop, and run Protel 99SE (SP6) in virtual machines with Win 7, and it is quite stable.  (I'm thinking I might go back to XP some day, as that seemed even better.)  These Windows guest systems under a VM can be as secure as you want to make them, totally cut off from the net.

I know all the quirks in P99SE, and what to do when they crop up.  It doesn't handle multi-channel designs in a hierarchical way, but I can just do that manually.  The global edit makes that fairly easy.  And, always look for duplicated pin #'s on schematic parts, that screws up the netlist generation.
The design rule checks are really bulletproof, and you can't have anything more important than that.

Jon

[ocset]

i have eagle from when it was owned by cadsoft.
Now with autodesk the owners, apparently you have an annual fee.
I dont know whether you can still  buy the older "non-fee" eagle versions.

Eagle is the easiest and most intuitive i have ever used...and cheap.
IMHO.
I odnt know for sure, because you may be able to buy "add-ons" that do it as User-language-programs, but eagle  may not be able to do Bus routing of multiple diff pairs.