Hobbyiest grade Schematic\PCB Software

[uknerd]

Good afternoon all - first post in a long time

I have recently used JLPCB for the first time - very impressed with their service


I have been using EAGLE free for a while, and have been very happy, but have now found the size limit in the free version.

Please can i ask what people recommend for either Free or sensible price Schematic \ PCB software such as eagle

I have tried Kicad but could not get on with it

I have no objections to paying a sensible price for such software but cannot justify the 1700 for altium designer

Thankyou

UKNerd

[bogdan2014]

Have you tried easyeda? It's quite nice.

Sent from my Mi A1 using Tapatalk

[sleemanj]

DipTrace

[sokoloff]

I know you say you tried KiCAD and had troubles (I can understand that based on the UI).

I also started with Eagle and later switched to KiCAD when Eagle got Autodesk'd. I found several of the YouTube videos helpful to walk through the process and after that, things made more sense, so you might try that.

I have no dog in the fight, but if I look forward 5 or 10 years, I truly believe the KiCAD is going to be the dominant hobbyist and small/micro-business PCB design software. That's my basis for recommending giving it another go.

The best video series I can recommend is "Getting to Blinky", which unfortunately has not (yet) been updated to the KiCAD 5.0 workflow.

[uknerd]

cool

Thanks everyone

Has anyone used Circuit Maker    - sharing designs is not an issue for me

I am just watching dave's first impressions video

[sokoloff]

Sorry, pasted the same video URL twice above. (now fixed but OP might not see it)
The second video series I meant to link to is Getting to Blinky (KiCAD 4.0 unfortunately):

[uknerd]

Cheers

Will take another look


Just tried a basic pin header -> resistor -> led schematic on circuit maker

Seems a long process and so far don’t like it

[MarkF]

+1 for DipTrace.

The free version is limited by pin count.  NOT board size.
The free for Non-profit license gets you 500 pins.