Author Topic: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?  (Read 12533 times)

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Offline digsys

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2016, 02:35:46 pm »
Quote from: Boscoe
  I had only used Proteus for basic stuff a few years ago. How do you do it?
This is a simple PCB I did a while ago, it's an EV battery management system: www.pbase.com/digsys/projects  Some more odds and ends after a clear-out:
www.pbase.com/digsys/electronics_stuffz (not all obviously)
If you mean - how do you make a complex package - it's the most intuitive method I'd ever used. Easiest way is to -
Grab a few similar packages that you like - then "break them apart". 1 click. CUT / COPY / MOVE pins, tags, lines etc to make your new package. Edit the pins.
Set a grid and snap to it. Add any cute stuff and click "Make package". I'd be happy to send you a huge selection to check out / play with / use if you want.
I often make several version of the same "chip" to suit specific issues, it's just so fast and easy.
Hello <tap> <tap> .. is this thing on?
 

Offline BoscoeTopic starter

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2016, 09:02:05 pm »
IMHO the only way to really test a CAD package is to make at least 2 boards with it following a tutorial. There is no use in starting this kind of software and start hitting keys blindly. This means you'll need to do a pre-selection on which packages to focus on because you can't test them all. The first thing is to set a budget and look which packages can be purchased for that price. Then try to collect and categorize experience from others and sift the facts from the opinions and user mistakes. After that you should have a few packages left to delve deeper into.

Yes I understand this. I will be thoroughly testing them over the coming weeks.
 

Offline BoscoeTopic starter

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2016, 09:03:44 pm »
Quote from: Boscoe
  I had only used Proteus for basic stuff a few years ago. How do you do it?
This is a simple PCB I did a while ago, it's an EV battery management system: www.pbase.com/digsys/projects  Some more odds and ends after a clear-out:
www.pbase.com/digsys/electronics_stuffz (not all obviously)
If you mean - how do you make a complex package - it's the most intuitive method I'd ever used. Easiest way is to -
Grab a few similar packages that you like - then "break them apart". 1 click. CUT / COPY / MOVE pins, tags, lines etc to make your new package. Edit the pins.
Set a grid and snap to it. Add any cute stuff and click "Make package". I'd be happy to send you a huge selection to check out / play with / use if you want.
I often make several version of the same "chip" to suit specific issues, it's just so fast and easy.

Thanks! The libraries are quite comprehensive so butchering theirs might work. I don't see any quick way of naming pads so potentially could have to name hundreds of pins one by one rather than copying them and they automatically increment in number.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2016, 09:52:47 pm »
Thanks! The libraries are quite comprehensive so butchering theirs might work. I don't see any quick way of naming pads so potentially could have to name hundreds of pins one by one rather than copying them and they automatically increment in number.
AFAIK every commercial CAD package comes with a footprint generator which should be able to generate footprints with many pins like BGA, QFN, QFP, etc.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline m98

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #29 on: March 13, 2016, 11:43:33 pm »
There's the problem that every EDA-software has at least those 10 features you miss, and those top 10 bugs or ux fails. You just have to find the optimal compromise.
Best one for me is the relatively unknown software TARGET 3001. Greatest thing about it is that there aren't any hard limits on things you can and can't to with it, unless you want to design some advanced RF black magic.
 

Offline hammy

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #30 on: March 14, 2016, 07:18:10 pm »
Best one for me is the relatively unknown software TARGET 3001.

+1

But I believe the component database cannot tap the full potential outside the European market. The order numbers and the deep links into the distributor shops (Conrad, Reichelt, ...)  are _maybe_ useless in Australia or the US. (?)

However the new componiverse a really nice feature.

Cheers
hammy
« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 10:35:04 pm by hammy »
 

Offline m98

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #31 on: March 14, 2016, 11:11:54 pm »
But I believe the component database cannot tap the full potential outside the European market. The order numbers and the deep links into the distributor shops (Conrad, Reichelt, ...)  are _maybe_ useless in Australia or the US. (?)
I just always search for the parts in google or the big distributors like mouser, RS, and Farnell, because the links from the component database are often outdated or just too expensive. Same for datasheets, why did they come to the conclusion that anyone would like to use a page like datasheets.com?
However I don't often use parts from the database, most of the time I need to create them, which is really fast and easy in Target.
 

Offline tycz

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #32 on: March 16, 2016, 02:28:22 am »
Boscoe,

I suggest you try PCB Elegance. It's a full featured commercial EDA package that was release for free/open source a few years ago when the company that made it went out of business. I use it for all my projects and find it to be excellent. The user interface is particularly well thought out and consistent, which is a part a some EDA packages struggle with. Previously I used Protel/Altium for many years and always felt I was fighting with it. PCB Elegance is a lot more fun to use in comparison.

I host the software myself because the original website has gone.
http://etim.net.au/pcbelegance/

It comes with a comprehensive user manual (unlike Altium - ha) and a few example projects (one's a Pentium motherboard). The component library it comes with isn't great, but it's easy to make new schematic symbols and footprints.
 

Offline AndrewDojo

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #33 on: March 16, 2016, 09:23:47 pm »
Proteus schematic capture is nice - probably the best out of all packages and the layout isn't too bad - a little bit clumsy. Creating large pin count packages seems like a nightmare though as I think you have to enter individual pin numbers manually! Not looking forward to those BGAs!

1. Place a pad/pin.
2. Right click on it and choose "Replicate".  Specify the number of copies, and X/Y offset.  OK.
3. Hit N to bring up the auto name generator. Don't change anything - just OK (hit the enter key)
4. Click on each pad in turn to number it.
5. Hit N and then Cancel/Esc key to stop numbering.

If you want a letter prefix to the pin number (e.g. BGA), Just type what you want into the "String" field in the Auto Name Generator in step 3.  If you want to start numbering from a value other than 1, change the Count field to the start you want.

You can select one or more pads and rotate them using +/- keys.

Right click on one of the selected pads and choose "Move To" to move the pad to a specific coordinate.  All the other selected pads will move as relative as well.
 

Offline xygor

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #34 on: March 16, 2016, 10:19:46 pm »
I suggest you try PCB Elegance.

I found that it crashed frequently when messing around with the PC mobo example.  I traced it down to some function being called with a null pointer.  I never did pursue it far enough to fix it though.

It was a while ago, but I did make a list of notes about it, which I list here in case it helps:

PCB Elegance 3.50
1. Full version now available without cost.  The included gerber viewer,
  VIEWPLOT 2.0, however needs to be purchased and unlocked with a dongle
  for all of VIEWPLOT's features to be available.  Can view, but no
  editing and saving.
2. No Blind/buried vias.
3. Modes are confusing.
4. No fine grained clearances. (i.e. all combinations of pad, via,
  trace, and layer.)
5. Schematic symbol creation allows for 20 pins at a time, but
  pasting in pinnames works.  The pinname text, however, is not
  tied to the pin, so it is possible to make a mistake if you are
  no careful when editing the component during creation.
6. Only 3 grid fixed choices in schematic editor and symbol editor.  This
  makes it difficult to do fancy graphics.  Can use scaling, but stuff can't
  be brought back on the grid when scaling to final size.  It moves in
  the current grid increments, just displaced from the current grid.
7. Layers are opaque.  Plane layers are negative so are transparent.
  Area fills on plane layers are not transparent, but are painted first,
  so that signal layers are not obscured.
8. Can't draw on plane layers except for area fills.
9. Can display properties of things, but can't edit them there.
10. Crashes in the pcb editor, especially when the pc motherboard example
  is open and dragging traces or panning.
11. Difficult or maybe not possible to insert a vertex in an existing trace.
  "drag one trace" sometimes drags after clicking.  Other times, it just
  highlights.  It gets into the highlighting mode after choosing
  right-click->escape.  The esc key will not do it.  After highlight,
  right-click->drag must be selected to get into drag. "d" shortcut does
  not work.  Or you must go into some other mode and reenter drag trace
  mode.
12. Need to highlight something before selecting info command, but you must
  be in the right mode to select something and the right mode depends on
  the something.  (Hover ballons always work on visible objects.)
  Info displays a table which includes the one or more items selected.
  Info does not work for traces.
13. Drag trace does not work consistently.  Erratic at times.
14. Can't insert a vertex, which can be useful before a drag.  And dragging
  does not insert any vertexes.  Therefore, it is not possible to drag
  a straight trace that connects two vias, for example.  But route net
  can be used to modify a trace that has a network assigned.
15. Right-click->"Other menus"->whatever changes modes (aka menus), but does
  not update button tiles on the screen, so they get temporarily out of
  sync with each other.
16. No permanent display of pin numbers or net names, but hovering shows
  properties of vias and traces.
17. No choice of font.  Vector only.  But schematic can create pdf with
  searchable text.  Apparently uses courier font when making pdf.  It's
  nice to not have to worry about it, but the screen appearance can be
  different than the print appearance.  (slashed zero on screen, no
  slash on print, for example.)
18. No net classes, but it is easy to apply class-like attributes (clearance,
  trace width, via) to individual nets.
19. No easy way to get a report of board statistics.
20. Stippling (great for color blind people.) 15 predefined patterns.  Any
  color can be chosen for each of the two colors in the pattern.
21. GPL'd Source code!  Can compile with VC2010, VC2005, or mingw.
22. Online active DRC prevents clearance errors while routing or
  dragging traces.  Moving traces is free-range and the end points disconnect
   no DRC for that.
23. While routing a trace, can push another trace that is in the way while
  maintaining clearance on both traces. Only traces/vias/pins/areafills
  in the current view are used in the collision detection.
24. Schematics must be hierarchical.  Every sheet needs a symbol sheet except
  the top level.  But the sheets can be interconnected with a bus.  Buses
  can be a mixed collection of signals.  Power connections are global.
  It might be possible to make global signals too, but I don't know
  how yet.
25. One-to-one correspondence from design layers to gerber layers.
26. Trace length calculation is not valid if there is more than one parallel
  path.  It's even shorter than the shortest path, so it's not really
  useful under that circumstance.
27. Conflicting net trace collisions caused by a component move are deleted.
28. ODB++ export.
29. Help is too sparse.  Can't search.  Manual is same information.  Very
  lacking in details and concepts.
30. Can measure freely.  No grid snap for measurements, and that's good.
31. Footprint generator can make some regular patterns easily.  e.g. BGA
  with all the pads having the correct pin numbers.
32. Schematic symbols and component footprints are separate.  Assign a
  footprint (called geometry by the program) in the schematic by double
  clicking the component (no menu choice to do this).  A different
  geometry can also later be changed in either the schematic editor
  or pcb editor and updated in the other with reverse or forward annotate.
33. No reference designator renumbering in the layout editor.
34. No cursor key nudging during move.  Movement occurs, but in big steps.
35. No teardrop.
36. Ratnest lines are very helpful during manual routing.  It shows the
  connection from the route in progress to the nearest destination.
  Similar to eagle.  No need to toggle between straight-45 and 45-staight
  as in eagle though; It does this automatically depending on the cursor
  path taken.
37. Mask swell and paste shrink are part of the footprint definition, but
  can take on default values at creation time.
38. Produces RS-274X output without using painting.  Oops; it creates a
  aperture macro for a rotated rectangular pad, but ends up painting it!
 

Offline tycz

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #35 on: March 18, 2016, 05:04:21 am »

xygor,

Thanks for your notes. I made some comments below.

PCB Elegance has its bugs, as is the rule with EDA software it seems. Most are innocuous and easy to work around once you know about them. I've made a list of all the bugs I've found with the intention of fixing them at some point. I'm proficient in C programming but because I only work with embedded systems, I need to set aside some time to learn how to use MS Visual Studio, its debugger, and general Windows programming practices before I can start.


Quote
5. Schematic symbol creation allows for 20 pins at a time, but
  pasting in pinnames works.  The pinname text, however, is not
  tied to the pin, so it is possible to make a mistake if you are
  no careful when editing the component during creation.

That's consistent with other aspects of symbol and also PCB geometry (footprint) creation. Similarly, you can separate out the copper, solder mask, paste mask, etc. layers in the geometry editor. It allows maximum flexibility, but does requite a bit more care from the user.

The way is uses the multi line text boxes for fast name entry is great for getting new component creation over and done with quickly. It's something I haven't seen before on other EDA packages I've tried. There's always some amount of mouse work required between each pin entered.

Quote
9. Can display properties of things, but can't edit them there.

The way it's meant to work (according to the manual) is you can sort all the components by their various attributes, select which ones you like, hit OK and the components will be highlighted on the schematic. Then you can use features like Edit Multiple Components to do a mass edit.

Unfortunately, the Select Components By List feature is broken.

Quote
10. Crashes in the pcb editor, especially when the pc motherboard example
  is open and dragging traces or panning.
 
If you are in Drag One Trace mode and pan with the right mouse button while you are dragging a trace at the same time it will crash. The screen automatically pans while dragging so there's never a need to do it manually with the mouse. It's the only crash bug I've encountered and it's on the top of the bug list.

Quote
11. Difficult or maybe not possible to insert a vertex in an existing trace.
  "drag one trace" sometimes drags after clicking.  Other times, it just
  highlights.  It gets into the highlighting mode after choosing
  right-click->escape.  The esc key will not do it.  After highlight,
  right-click->drag must be selected to get into drag. "d" shortcut does
  not work.  Or you must go into some other mode and reenter drag trace
  mode.
 
You seem to be mixing up different modes/features here.

There are three PCB trace modes. Drag one trace, Change traces/vias, Route traces. All three modes are mapped to the same shortcut key "s" which toggles between them. If you use the keyboard, I recommend giving them each their own separate key (in the config file) otherwise it gets too confusing trying to toggle.

Drag one trace mode has only one feature - sliding whole trace segments around (there's probably a better way to describe that).

Change traces/vias - This is basically the trace selector and attribute modifier tool. Depending on which part of the trace segment you select you can move all of it or just end of it with the Move Traces/Vias (shortcut key "d") feature. I don't recommend ever using this feature to move traces. It's half broken, awkward to use, and totally unnecessary. I only ever use it to move vias.

Route traces - This the mode you would normally spend the most time in. It's not only useful for drawing new traces, but also modifying existing ones.
 
Quote
12. Need to highlight something before selecting info command, but you must
  be in the right mode to select something and the right mode depends on
  the something.  (Hover ballons always work on visible objects.)
  Info displays a table which includes the one or more items selected.
  Info does not work for traces.
 
Everything on the PCB falls into one of four categories. Component, areafill/powerplane, trace/via, special. Specials being all free elements like lines, arcs, holes, polygons, holes, text, etc. which are not part of a component. You must be in each category's respective mode to select it. It works well and prevents silly mistakes like selecting a component when you meant to select a track running between it's legs. Another example, if you want to reroute a section of the board you can simply select the area while in Change Traces/Vias mode and press delete without worrying that you might take the power planes, and pieces of silkscreen text out with them.
   
Quote
13. Drag trace does not work consistently.  Erratic at times.
14. Can't insert a vertex, which can be useful before a drag.  And dragging
  does not insert any vertexes.  Therefore, it is not possible to drag
  a straight trace that connects two vias, for example.  But route net
  can be used to modify a trace that has a network assigned.

I don't use the Drag one trace feature much. It's useful when there are a lot of parallel traces that need to be moved over, but otherwise it's usually quicker to use route traces mode instead.
 
Quote
15. Right-click->"Other menus"->whatever changes modes (aka menus), but does
  not update button tiles on the screen, so they get temporarily out of
  sync with each other.
 
So they do. I hadn't seen that one before because I usually use the keyboard shortcuts. I'll put it on the bug list.
 
Quote
17. No choice of font.  Vector only.  But schematic can create pdf with
  searchable text.  Apparently uses courier font when making pdf.  It's
  nice to not have to worry about it, but the screen appearance can be
  different than the print appearance.  (slashed zero on screen, no
  slash on print, for example.)

Everything in the schematic is vector. The PCB has a choice of vector font, a few built fonts, or any font from the windows system. To choose the windows font you need to click on the button called "Mirror X" (mistitled, another bug) which brings up a standard font chooser dialogue box.
 
Quote
24. Schematics must be hierarchical.  Every sheet needs a symbol sheet except
  the top level.  But the sheets can be interconnected with a bus.  Buses
  can be a mixed collection of signals.  Power connections are global.
  It might be possible to make global signals too, but I don't know
  how yet.
 
I don't know about this one either. I don't make multi sheet schematics, but instead put everything one one big sheet. There doesn't appear to be to be any significant limits on sheet size so I've made some quite huge ones before. It's still fast to navigate because the the panning speed can be set to a multiple of the mouse speed.

Quote
29. Help is too sparse.  Can't search.  Manual is same information.  Very
  lacking in details and concepts.

You can search in the manual. I agree that it's lacking a bit on explaining concepts. There may not be enough info there for people who are new to EDA software in general. It's been a while since I've looked at it though.
 
 

Offline xygor

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #36 on: March 18, 2016, 10:02:09 am »
@tycz
Thank you for the explanations.
Thank you for maintaining PCB Elegance.  It is too good to just let it die.
 

Offline JohnnyP

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Re: Which PCB CAD for low level pro?
« Reply #37 on: April 08, 2016, 11:14:15 am »
I've used McCad PCB-ST (exclusively) since 1989.
Thinking is hard work
 


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