Best Sub $2k PCB Design Software?

[jpb]

Thanks DerekG for the helpful information.

I have no plans to contract at present - if I did I'd probably bite the bullet and go the super-expensive Altium route. I'm in academia at present - my first degree and much early experience was in Electronics but I'm now in Computer Science. Electronics for me is more than a hobby in that I want to keep my hand in and educate myself for possibly moving back into it but it is not fully professional hence the funding level is what I feel I can justify to myself (and my family) as training. Given that, it would be nice to use a package for which the change to Altium in future wouldn't require major re-learning.

I have almost zero experience of board layout as my professional electronics experience was in monolithic microwave integrated circuits (so I do have some experience of laying out ICs with transmission lines as well as active components and with multi-layers including via holes so it is perhaps not that different). One thing that puts me off Eagle is that it seems to do things in a unique (quirky) way so from the self-education point of view I'd rather use a package that takes a more main-stream approach.

From what you say, the power plane restriction in Proteus is not too onerous. Proteus is attractive as they are a UK company so I can easily ring them up for support.

[DerekG]

I'm in academia at present - my first degree and much early experience was in Electronics but I'm now in Computer Science.

Now you mention that you are studying, you have another option which is pretty inexpensive.

According to the post below you can own an academic version of Altium for just US$119/year (no VAT as they will send it to you from China/USA/Australia). You do need a uni email address to receive the licence file & you will have to provide Altium with a copy of your course details (Computer Science will be just fine). When you finish your degree, hit up Altium for a better price if you wish to continue with it. I've heard of people getting substantial discounts if they have owned/used previous versions.

(to be directed to this actual post - copy & paste the entire link into your browser)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/best-sub-$2k-pcb-design-software/msg414690/#msg414690

[scientist]

KiCAD is completely unlimited in the number of layers and size of board space you can use.¹ That, to me, sets it far ahead of all other free EDA software.

To be totally clear, excepting the FPGA development tools, fancy autorouting algos and other gimmicks that maybe 1% of users ever touch, Altium is no better than KiCAD. Anyone who says otherwise has not fully learned KiCAD and/or refuses to adapt their workflow, due to laziness.² That, or they're in the 1% that is required by their employer to use Altium. 

I find KiCAd comparable to LaTeX. Yes, KiCAD and LaTeX have somewhat unfamiliar interfaces for noobs and those used to "professional" tools like Altium and M$ Word, but in the end they usually make a more beautiful result, are less buggy, and are more efficiently written.

¹ Within reason. Obviously you can't make a board that's 64 layers deep, since that isn't manufacturable with current technology.

² I will be the first to admit that I refuse to change my workflow, at least at this time, from KiCAD to Altium or god forbid Eagle. I have used Altium (the full version with all the bells and whistles) and its most basic functions are buggy as all hell. The interface is hideous and the bloat of 7GB (and the price) is unacceptable given that they didn't include modules/parts for every single component in existence.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

I have used Altium (the full version with all the bells and whistles) and its most basic functions are buggy as all hell. The interface is hideous

Hi, you should probably mention what version of Altium you are referring to, I can't imagine all versions would be this bad.

[DerekG]

Altium is no better than KiCAD

You cannot even change the pcb background colour from that of black with KiCAD.

As Henry Ford said "you can have any colour you want as long as it is black."

The autorouter in Altium work fairly well. Yes there is some cleaning up to do afterwards, but it does save a heap of time when working on complex boards.

In fact, I manually place & lock all components that need to be in a specific location (ie connectors, switches, leds etc), then use the autoplacer for everything else with EXCELLENT results. As long as you set up its clearance parameters & the grid, it does a fantastic job.

[scientist]

It was Altium Designer 2014 as far as I can remember. I uninstalled it after a few weeks of trying it out, so I don't have the exact build number.

[scientist]

Altium is no better than KiCAD

You cannot even change the pcb background colour from that of black with KiCAD.

As Henry Ford said "you can have any colour you want as long as it is black."

You're free to invert your screen colors. I find black nicer as I don't particularly enjoy staring at a flashlight for long periods of time.

The autorouter in Altium work fairly well. Yes there is some cleaning up to do afterwards, but it does save a heap of time when working on complex boards.

The crappy built-in autorouter in KiCAD has been replaced with a pretty nice one, and while not particularly fast it is effective. As with Altium (and pretty much everything else) there is always some cleaning up to do.

In fact, I manually place & lock all components that need to be in a specific location (ie connectors, switches, leds etc), then use the autoplacer for everything else with EXCELLENT results. As long as you set up its clearance parameters & the grid, it does a fantastic job.

KiCAD has the same autoplacing function. If you put the same amount of good setting-up of grids/clearance parameters in KiCAD as you already do in Altium, you'd get about the same result. My main issue with the critics of KiCAD is that they expect that they'll have to put no effort into learning KiCAD, even though they spent hours learning Altium and simply rely on muscle memory to do simple tasks. 

[jpb]

I'm in academia at present - my first degree and much early experience was in Electronics but I'm now in Computer Science.

Now you mention that you are studying, you have another option which is pretty inexpensive.

According to the post below you can own an academic version of Altium for just US$119/year (no VAT as they will send it to you from China/USA/Australia). You do need a uni email address to receive the licence file & you will have to provide Altium with a copy of your course details (Computer Science will be just fine). When you finish your degree, hit up Altium for a better price if you wish to continue with it. I've heard of people getting substantial discounts if they have owned/used previous versions.

(to be directed to this actual post - copy & paste the entire link into your browser)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/best-sub-$2k-pcb-design-software/msg414690/#msg414690

I'm a post-doc rather than a student and my current contract will end in October so I'm not sure if I qualify (some companies, like Microsoft for example, include staff with students in most educational offers and some don't).
Thanks for the heads up though, I can just ask giving them the full facts and see what they say.

[n3wbie]

Now for the cruncher. Are you going to design boards as a contractor for other companies? If you are then you will probably need Altium at some stage as it is slowly becoming the defacto standard for high end work. Be prepared to outlay $9K if you order before the end of June & 11K if you order in July.

I hope this info helps.

Is the price for Altium going up? When I looked into it recently, it was 7k.

[DerekG]

I'm a post-doc rather than a student and my current contract will end in October so I'm not sure if I qualify

If you tell Altium that you want to do some design work as part of your doctorate you should be fine (can you weave it into your studies even in a very small way)? My understanding is that the educational version will operate for 12 months from the date of activation. That will give you until this time next year to work out if you want to continue with it.

If you can't bring yourself to say this, then perhaps reconsider Proteus again. Just take the cheapest version & pay the difference if you find you need to upgrade over the next year or so.

Just my 2c worth (again).

[DerekG]

Is the price for Altium going up? When I looked into it recently, it was 7k.

Yes, according to the post below. Remember you have to pay the US$1750 maintenance & support fee on top of the purchase price. This will bring the cost of Altium 14 to just a tad under US$10K

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-designer-new-pricing-model-and-high-end-low-end-tool-in-development/msg434149/#msg434149

[jpb]

If you can't bring yourself to say this, then perhaps reconsider Proteus again. Just take the cheapest version & pay the difference if you find you need to upgrade over the next year or so.

This is the approach I'll probably take. I like to keep my life simple. I've contacted Proteus to see if I qualify for their educational discount but if I don't the price difference isn't enormous.

[BloodyCactus]

Myself, I just paid up for the DipTrace 1000 pins. I really wanted to pay for Eagle but $1000 is just too much for me to spend on something that is a hobby, since I outgrew the 6x4" board size.. Well DipTrace was the only other option.

I spent time on Proteus but the demo does not let you save, trying to evaluate without being able to save is a nightmare!

[DerekG]

Myself, I just paid up for the DipTrace 1000 pins.
I spent time on Proteus but the demo does not let you save, trying to evaluate without being able to save is a nightmare!

DipTrace offer pretty good support which is a bonus (even better than Proteus).

The best way to overcome not being able to save is to use Windows "Hibernate" rather than "Shutdown" ........ but yes I agree there must be a better way to offer the demo version.

[digsys]

The best way to overcome not being able to save is to use Windows "Hibernate" rather than "Shutdown" ........ but yes I agree there must be a better way to offer the demo version. 

Back in the early days, they had an incredible student / free eval (with save) policy. I had several students / users hooked on it.
I nearly became a distributor as well. No idea what happened several years back, but it all ended. New owners?
Anyway, I've used it since they started (and tried most others), and absolutely prefer it. I do 50-200 PCBs a year

[DerekG]

Anyway, I've used it since they started (and tried most others), and absolutely prefer it. I do 50-200 PCBs a year

Yes, I agree. Of all the pcb packages I've looked at over the years, Proteus provides the biggest punch for the smallest bucks (US$250 for the pin limited version up to US$2K for the unlimited version).

The next step up is huge ........... an extra US$6K for Altium 14 (soon to become an extra US$8K in July with the AD14/AD15 price rise).

[BloodyCactus]

I believe they still do steep student discounts in the EU? I see lots and lots, heaps, of EU vids on youtube for Proteus.

It looked pretty good, I was not really interested in the simulation and Proteus seemed more concerned about that than the schematic/pcb layout.. thats the feeling I had.

[digsys]

I believe they still do steep student discounts in the EU? I see lots and lots, heaps, of EU vids on youtube for Proteus.

<sniff> ... they've abandoned their remote penal colonies then ? :-(

It looked pretty good, I was not really interested in the simulation and Proteus seemed more concerned about that than the schematic/pcb layout.. thats the feeling I had. 

My take on this is - The schematic/pcb has been pretty dern good for ages, with mostly eveything you could possibly need
sorted out years ago. Stuff like autorouting / simulation are very complex and reasonably newish developments.
They did the "right" thing and made them clip-on packages, so you can decide IF you need them and what level you want.
Plus, being pretty intense to develop, Labcentre would want to recover costs / make a profit from them.
Given that the core hasn't changed much over the last years and that you don't HAVE to pay for yearly support, I know
this model has come back to bite them ! :-) earning wise. I pay support (on a few sites) ONCE every few years (after they
offer a huge discount :-) ) ... hmmm maybe I'm the problem :-)

[jpb]

Sadly I don't qualify for the Proteus education discount (I e-mailed them to find out and they said no) - I guess you have to be a student and not a post-doc (a lot of companies are more flexible on this).

The single user educational discount is only 20% anyway - the big discounts are for multi-user educational licenses.