Is there a PCB-CAD package on the market - with eternal licensing?

[AndersJ]

I want to archive projects together with the tools used to create them, such as the PCB CAD program.
In the future I can unpack it all, do whatever is needed, and then pack it again.

The tool license, if there is one,
must be eternal and not locked to a dongle or PC hardware.
Once purchased, I want:
* No hardware or vendor dependencies or other restrictions
* It to be mine, forever, and free to use as I see fit
* Freeze the tool version used to avoid upgrading and incompatibility issues

Today, when I open a old project,
I sometimes find that the current ”modern” version of the tool has changed
and my project is no longer compatible for whatever reason.
Fixing issues is risky,
and if the project has a third party certification,
changing ”unnecessary” details complicates the recertification process.


Is there such a ”buy once, use forever” PCB-CAD program on the market?

[langwadt]

I want to archive projects together with the tools used to create them, such as the PCB CAD program.
In the future I can unpack it all, do whatever is needed, and then pack it again.

The tool license, if there is one,
must be eternal and not locked to a dongle or PC hardware.
Once purchased, I want:
* No hardware or vendor dependencies or other restrictions
* It to be mine, forever, and free to use as I see fit
* Freeze the tool version used to avoid upgrading and incompatibility issues

Today, when I open a old project,
I sometimes find that the current ”modern” version of the tool has changed
and my project is no longer compatible for whatever reason.
Fixing issues is risky,
and if the project has a third party certification,
changing ”unnecessary” details complicates the recertification process.


Is there such a ”buy once, use forever” PCB-CAD program on the market?

sure, kicad, price $0

[AndersJ]

What are the major similarities and differences
between KiCad and the older programs such as OrCad, PADS, Altium etc?

Can KiCad import their projects, including, schematics, component libraries, copper pours etc?

[nctnico]

I want to archive projects together with the tools used to create them, such as the PCB CAD program.
In the future I can unpack it all, do whatever is needed, and then pack it again.

The tool license, if there is one,
must be eternal and not locked to a dongle or PC hardware.

Is there such a ”buy once, use forever” PCB-CAD program on the market?

Simple: buy one for which is also a hacked version available. I have been doing that for ages after getting burned a couple of times. Either way later versions will have problems reading older files and older versions may not install on newer OSses so you'll need to freeze the OS as well (IOW: install & use in a virtual machine).

Regarding KiCad: this isn't ready for professional use yet. The component management system (or lack thereof) simply isn't up to the task yet. A good PCB cad package has a database back-end for the components (like the CIS option for Orcad and Altium has an integrated component library system). Without a good component management system the logistics of having a PCB produced and library management in general quickly become extremely time consuming.

[AndersJ]

I use PADS, with a dongle.
It works well, as long as PADS is still on the market, and Mentor supports it

What worries me, in the long run,
is that when/if PADS is no longer supported for whatever reason,
and my dongle fails or the license needs to be renewed,
then I’m in trouble.

I own the program, but I cannot use it,
and can no longer modify my pcb’s.
Moving dozens of pcb’s to a new environment,
possibly with the same problem is not something I want to do.

Therefore I want a eternal license without PC hardware dependancies.
Or a license free version.

Unfortunately my local Mentor sales people are unwilling to fix this.
All it takes is a license file without restrictions.
Or a register change that removes the need for a license file.
 
I also own a Volvo car.
I can use it as much as I want,
without asking Volvo for permission every year.

Why is a pcb CAD program different?

[Cerebus]

I also own a Volvo car.
I can use it as much as I want,
without asking Volvo for permission every year.

Why is a pcb CAD program different?

Because software companies are like young people. Young people believe they will live forever, the prospect of their own mortality has not yet caught up with them despite the fact that they know people die, so they do not make wills. Software companies similarly believe they will go on forever, despite seeing evidence of company demise left, right and centre, they too refuse to make provision for a future that does not include them. Neither want to contemplate their likely ultimate fates, so refuse to engage in a discussion along the lines "Yes, but what will I do once you're gone forever if I outlive you?".

On a completely different note: Diptrace has a perpetual license, or did when I last looked at it. Don't like it personally, but it's usable (like all CAD software: "for some value of usable"). I mention it purely as a data point of software that could potentially outlive its producers while still being fully functional.

[AndyC_772]

I also own a Volvo car.
I can use it as much as I want,
without asking Volvo for permission every year.

You'll still need spares, though. You might be able to buy generic substitutes for items like oil filters and windscreen wipers, but you'd be lost without manufacturer support if you need something like a body panel, ECU or engine part. You might not subscribe to your car "as a service", but you do still need the manufacturer to be around.

I dislike the idea of renting software as much as anyone, but I don't think "buy once, use on any computer, anywhere, forever" is a realistic expectation.

You can buy a perpetual licence for OrCAD, which is what I use, and last time I checked it was being offered at a bargain price for the most basic ("PCB Designer") level.

[Kjelt]

Because software companies are like young people. Young people believe they will live forever, blabla

No the reason is that they want a steady income not a singular peak and then decay.
The whole licensing stuff is created to generate a steady fixed source of income where the SW developers are being paid from.

I don't like it myself but the difference between hardware and software is that you have many many more releases and intermediate updates, support etc. etc. and you keep the people on the payroll.

[Cerebus]

Because software companies are like young people. Young people believe they will live forever, blabla

No the reason is that they want a steady income not a singular peak and then decay.
The whole licensing stuff is created to generate a steady fixed source of income where the SW developers are being paid from.

I don't like it myself but the difference between hardware and software is that you have many many more releases and intermediate updates, support etc. etc. and you keep the people on the payroll.

I was, quite obviously, referring to the refusal to even consider talking about the issue with one of their customers. It's the same thing, they are acting within their own interests, and those alone, and don't give a flying one for their customers should they end up 'dead'. Some companies that have reached a certain level of maturity, make escrow arrangements for their source code and other materials necessary to maintain their software should they go out of business, so that their customers aren't left high and dry. Wise customers insist on this sort of arrangement before they put themselves at the mercy of the continued existence of their software supplier. Where individual customers don't have the clout to make these kind of instances, then user groups have often taken up the cudgel to make sure that suitable arrangements are put into place.

[Wilksey]

Altium will allow you to do this, just save the offline installer with the project and the license file, it's only the subscription that expires with Altium, not the licensing of the tool itself.

[krish2487]

+1 altium.
You can even go the circuit studio path if you need a more economical solution.
You can request altium for an offline installer for the same and freeze it there.

[Kjelt]

I was, quite obviously, referring to the refusal to even consider talking about the issue with one of their customers. It's the same thing, they are acting within their own interests, and those alone, and don't give a flying one for their customers should they end up 'dead'.

That is no different then HW manufacturers putting components as EOL.
A large company can do a last endbuy but some day the stock is empty and they have to pay sometimes millions for a redesign incl. retesting, recertification of their boards and products etc.
And those are companies that live on.

Also you have to understand that many commercial software depends on third party libraries and compilers.
Those are usually not OS and are not allowed to be shared. Stripping code will render it useless.

All in all it is very difficult for a software company to leave behind some legacy code that will remain usefull for customers. And if a SW company is in heavy weather the last thing on their mind is to start a new project to remove the licensing and start giving away their product.

[nfmax]

I was, quite obviously, referring to the refusal to even consider talking about the issue with one of their customers. It's the same thing, they are acting within their own interests, and those alone, and don't give a flying one for their customers should they end up 'dead'.

That is no different then HW manufacturers putting components as EOL.
A large company can do a last endbuy but some day the stock is empty and they have to pay sometimes millions for a redesign incl. retesting, recertification of their boards and products etc.
And those are companies that live on.

Also you have to understand that many commercial software depends on third party libraries and compilers.
Those are usually not OS and are not allowed to be shared. Stripping code will render it useless.

All in all it is very difficult for a software company to leave behind some legacy code that will remain usefull for customers. And if a SW company is in heavy weather the last thing on their mind is to start a new project to remove the licensing and start giving away their product.

Which is why availability of the source code matters

[Karel]

I was, quite obviously, referring to the refusal to even consider talking about the issue with one of their customers. It's the same thing, they are acting within their own interests, and those alone, and don't give a flying one for their customers should they end up 'dead'.

That is no different then HW manufacturers putting components as EOL.
A large company can do a last endbuy but some day the stock is empty and they have to pay sometimes millions for a redesign incl. retesting, recertification of their boards and products etc.
And those are companies that live on.

Also you have to understand that many commercial software depends on third party libraries and compilers.
Those are usually not OS and are not allowed to be shared. Stripping code will render it useless.

All in all it is very difficult for a software company to leave behind some legacy code that will remain usefull for customers. And if a SW company is in heavy weather the last thing on their mind is to start a new project to remove the licensing and start giving away their product.

Which is why availability of the source code matters

Which is why supporting Kicad is a good idea.

[nctnico]

Which is why availability of the source code matters

Actually it doesn't matter. By the time you would want to compile the source you find out the current compilers can not compile the old code right away because the compilers have moved on with tiny but important changes in how the source code is interpreted. Just recently I had to downgrade the C compiler on a Linux system to compile an older C cross-compiler. Having the source code is highly overrated (and that is an understatement).

[ebclr]

Will your OS be perpetual ?

I don't think so

[AndersJ]

The PC and the Operating System can be archived.
But,
when the license has expired,
or the dongle has broken, then I'm on my own if the CAD company is gone.

[nfmax]

Which is why availability of the source code matters

Actually it doesn't matter. By the time you would want to compile the source you find out the current compilers can not compile the old code right away because the compilers have moved on with tiny but important changes in how the source code is interpreted. Just recently I had to downgrade the C compiler on a Linux system to compile an older C cross-compiler. Having the source code is highly overrated (and that is an understatement).

Even if you can't compile the source code, you can still read it, so you can understand the design file format (which is the vital thing)

[Karel]

Will your OS be perpetual ?

I don't think so

Why do you think so? There are OS'es like Linux that have a perpetual license. You can backup the installation iso and
install it as often as you want and whenever you want. Doesn't mean there will allways be updates available but at least you
will be able to run your (old) software.

[PlainName]

You can backup the installation iso and
install it as often as you want and whenever you want

Until the hardware changes sufficiently to require new drivers that won't load on the old OS. Just had that with MythTV - got an archived image of the disk and even the installation media, but the hardware available now can't be used by the old OS and the new OS won't run the old software. There is, of course, an update to MythTV that won't read the old version database...

Solution was Ebay, but that's not going to last forever either.

[Karel]

You can backup the installation iso and
install it as often as you want and whenever you want

Until the hardware changes sufficiently to require new drivers that won't load on the old OS.

Can you give an example of a normal (IBM-compatibel, x86) pc where I can not install, for example, OpenSuse Linux 11.2 which is 10 years old?

By the way, I can still install and activate using the license key, Eagle V6.xx (9 years old) and Eagle V7.xx on a brand new pc with the latest and shiniest Linux version available without an internet connection.

[PlainName]

Can you give an example of a normal (IBM-compatibel, x86) pc where I can not install, for example, OpenSuse Linux 11.2 which is 10 years old?

No, because I don't use OpenSuse. I assume that my example also doesn't use OpenSuse, so whether or not that works on anything at all is mute - my stuff doesn't work, and that's surely what counts. Can you guarantee that OpenSuse will continue to work on anything your preset to it? Even as the likes of systemd does its best to emulate the worst of Microsoft?

By the way, I can still install and activate using

Well, bully for you. If it floats your boat you're set up, right? I'm pretty sure it won't play back the WWII mega-documentary series that's in my MythTV store, though.

Seriously, things tend to be just fine right up until they're not.

[Karel]

No, because I don't use OpenSuse. I assume that my example also doesn't use OpenSuse, so whether or not that works on anything at all is mute - my stuff doesn't work, and that's surely what counts.

No, it does not count. What counts is the possibility to install an operating system and run an (old) EDA software,
because that's what this thread is about.

[Cerebus]

You can backup the installation iso and
install it as often as you want and whenever you want

Until the hardware changes sufficiently to require new drivers that won't load on the old OS. Just had that with MythTV - got an archived image of the disk and even the installation media, but the hardware available now can't be used by the old OS and the new OS won't run the old software. There is, of course, an update to MythTV that won't read the old version database...

Solution was Ebay, but that's not going to last forever either.

Simple, run in a VM under VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen, KVM or whatever, telling it to limit the features of the virtual machine to the degree of archaicness required. If you want to go back to emulating pre-pentium machines you might have to use a more awkward software emulation with Qemu, but for anything this century you ought to be able to run up a hardware based VM with no problems.

[AndersJ]

What counts is the possibility to install an operating system and run an (old) EDA software,
because that's what this thread is about.

Actually, this thread is not about operating systems and old software.

This thread is about whether a program should be free to use forever,
once it has been purchased,
regardless of if the original publisher is still in business or not.

If the company disappears for whatever reason,
and is no longer there to renew the license or to replace a broken dongle then
the program can no longer be used.

Consequently products designed with the program can then no longer be supported.

So,
once purchased,
it must be possible to use the program without future dependancies of the publisher.
In most cases this is unfortunately not the case.

When shit hits the fan,
every single product (pcb's in this case) must be migrated to another CAD system,
possibly with the same type of shitty licensing.

That, is what this thread is (should be) about.

[Karel]

Is there a PCB-CAD package on the market - with eternal licensing?

At least there's Kicad and Eagle V7.
Regarding Eagle, you can't buy a perpetual license for the full version anymore but the free/limited version
is still available and perpetual (V7 that is), they can't "pull the plug".

This thread is about whether a program should be free to use forever,
once it has been purchased,
regardless of if the original publisher is still in business or not.

I believe a program should be free to use forever, once it has been purchased,
regardless of if the original publisher is still in business or not.
Unfortunately, more and more software vendors have a different opinion.

[Feynman]

Altium and Pulsonix have perpetual licensing options. EAGLE was perpetual until version 7.7.

[AndersJ]

Altium and Pulsonix have perpetual licensing options. EAGLE was perpetual until version 7.7.

In my case, Mentor Graphics and PADS,
”perpetual” means it has to be renewed every 10 years.
If they are out of business at the time of renewal, then I loose my program.
Same thing if my dongle breaks, if they cannot replace it, I’m at loss again.

In my book, that is NOT perpetual.
I want to use my program forever, without vendor dependencies.

How do Altium and Pulsonix define ”perpetual licensing”?

[Feynman]

How do Altium and Pulsonix define ”perpetual licensing”?

I don't know about Altium, but with Pulsonix you have your license file that can be used forever similar to how EAGLE used to be.

[PlainName]

How do Altium and Pulsonix define ”perpetual licensing”?

For Altium, if you have the offline installation media and your license file, you're good to go.

[AndersJ]

How do Altium and Pulsonix define ”perpetual licensing”?

For Altium, if you have the offline installation media and your license file, you're good to go.

Are you saying I can install it on any machine, at any time?
And move the program to another machine, when the first one fails,
or otherwise needs to be replaced, for whatever reason?
Without consulting Altium for rehosting?

[langwadt]

How do Altium and Pulsonix define ”perpetual licensing”?

For Altium, if you have the offline installation media and your license file, you're good to go.

Are you saying I can install it on any machine, at any time?
And move the program to another machine, when the first one fails,
or otherwise needs to be replaced, for whatever reason?
Without consulting Altium for rehosting?

Yes. The only copyright protection implemented are homing and same license collision on LAN.

Install wherever you want, just don't fire two copies of the same license at the same time.

so with a single license file the whole world can run altium as long as they are not on the same lan?

[Wilksey]

With Altium the subscription expires, so whatever version was released at the time of the subscription expiring is the latest version you are legally allowed to use.
The license is "infinite", you are legally allowed to take your license and install it on any machine with the appropriate software version as long as you are not then running it on another machine, so a single user license, our license has 10 seats covered by 1 key / license file, so technically we can use multiple licenses if we want to as long as we do not exceed 10.  The only exception is having Altium cloud licenses, I don't know what happens if you stop subscribing, this is Altium's cloud based licensing server, nothing to do with A365 by the way.
Altium is quite flexible, you can have cloud based as already mentioned, file based, or you can run your own licensing server locally, it works well for us.

If the machines are on different networks then they cannot talk to each other and find out how many licenses are already in use, but if they are on the same LAN then they can, I don't know if this has changed since V18 with all of the "call home" stuff, if the machines are on a different network but both have internet access it might be able to tell.

[Warhawk]

I want to archive projects together with the tools used to create them, such as the PCB CAD program.
In the future I can unpack it all, do whatever is needed, and then pack it again.

The tool license, if there is one,
must be eternal and not locked to a dongle or PC hardware.
Once purchased, I want:
* No hardware or vendor dependencies or other restrictions
* It to be mine, forever, and free to use as I see fit
* Freeze the tool version used to avoid upgrading and incompatibility issues

Today, when I open a old project,
I sometimes find that the current ”modern” version of the tool has changed
and my project is no longer compatible for whatever reason.
Fixing issues is risky,
and if the project has a third party certification,
changing ”unnecessary” details complicates the recertification process.


Is there such a ”buy once, use forever” PCB-CAD program on the market?

Sorry everyone for not reading the complete thread before posting. If you are a hobbyist, or a business without making very complex designs and tracking the supply chain, etc., KiCad is a good choice. The current version is already quite mature. It's opensource. I use it often and even abandoned Altium that I have access to. However, you should not expect professional features that Altium or Orcad offer. Alternatively, you can consider Circuit Studio from Altium. It is relatively cheap and offers a standalone license. However, it seems that Altium does not care about Circuit studio much.

Be careful with one thing - having a standalone license does not guarantee that you can install the SW ten years later. A typical example is Autodesk with their online activation. Servers are already down. The last AutoCAD with "just the key" is ACAD2000, I think.

I perfectly understand what you want and why you want it. You may want to do some edits in the future and the software may not be available. This is especially a problem with proprietary formats. Also, I've never seen PCBs or schematics imported properly in other software. It's definitely not working out of the box.

With my previous job we archived a complete virtual machine with every product release. Storage is cheap these days and you want to make sure that you compile a firmware update with the very same compiler like 10 years ago.

I guess kicad is your best try.

[Doctorandus_P]

Yet another vote for KiCad.
Quite a lot of people are using KiCad, also for professional work.
KiCad is also growing quite fast in popularity, which results in more donations and faster development.
Import of Eagle projects has also been included for some time, In the "Nightly V5.99, soon to become V6) import of CADSTAR is also (experimentally) included and others.

Olimex is one of the companies that uses KiCad for the (linux capable) boards they make and sell.

For some idea of projects made with KiCad have a look at:
https://kicad.org/made-with-kicad/

The "component database" thing is apparently important for some, but irrelevant for others. I guess it depends on how many different boards you make and how many revisions of those boards. The Idea is known by the KiCad developers and it may be implemented in a few years time, but currently the focus is on things that are relevant for a bigger part of the KiCad users. There still are a few parts in KiCad that feel "clunky" to new users.

[langwadt]

Yet another vote for KiCad.
Quite a lot of people are using KiCad, also for professional work.
KiCad is also growing quite fast in popularity, which results in more donations and faster development.
Import of Eagle projects has also been included for some time, In the "Nightly V5.99, soon to become V6) import of CADSTAR is also (experimentally) included and others.

Olimex is one of the companies that uses KiCad for the (linux capable) boards they make and sell.

For some idea of projects made with KiCad have a look at:
https://kicad.org/made-with-kicad/

The "component database" thing is apparently important for some, but irrelevant for others. I guess it depends on how many different boards you make and how many revisions of those boards. The Idea is known by the KiCad developers and it may be implemented in a few years time, but currently the focus is on things that are relevant for a bigger part of the KiCad users. There still are a few parts in KiCad that feel "clunky" to new users.

has there ever been a CAD package that doesn't feel "clunky" until you get used to it?

[ElectronRob]

Sorry, but from my point of view any ecad software which can have a licence installed onto the machine its self is perpetual.

Orcad might be a bad example because of the dongle, if they go bust and you lose the dongle then sure I see the problem. But Altium can have the licence locally installed. Therefore you can use that licence to open projects forever.

I sound like I am marketing Altium here (I am not) but I can use AD17 to open AD20 projects with a few warnings about new features.... thats great, I can also use AD20 to open ANY project from a previous release all the way down to Protel. You can't get much more perpetual than that.

Solidworks is very rigid on this, you cannot ever open a solidworks file made by a newer version - thats one of the ways they force users to pay for updates, but ecad tools seem to be a bit more flexible in that regard.

The biggest issue for us historically has been when we have let updates lapse, we employ someone new so buy a new licence in the mean time the software company has merged so all the new versions aren't directly compatible with the old. Lesson here is to just suck it up and pay the sub. 

[nctnico]

Sorry, but from my point of view any ecad software which can have a licence installed onto the machine its self is perpetual.

Orcad might be a bad example because of the dongle, if they go bust and you lose the dongle then sure I see the problem. But Altium can have the licence locally installed. Therefore you can use that licence to open projects forever.

That is not entirely correct. First of all Orcad defaults to node-locked licensing (to a piece of hardware); the dongle is an option. Secondly; with a node locked license you have a probem when you want to upgrade the PC and the software suppler no longer exists. In the end both methods rely on a piece of hardware. This is also the reason why I don't buy software if there is no hacked version for it. In the end that is the only way to make sure you can always make use of the software you bought.

[olkipukki]

Orcad might be a bad example because of the dongle, if they go bust and you lose the dongle then sure I see the problem. But Altium can have the licence locally installed. Therefore you can use that licence to open projects forever.

What would happen if Altium go bust? 

Do you have the offline installer?
Did you try to install it on another machine and activate there without Altium online?

[Mattylad]

Tape and pads will last for years, as long as the glue remains on the bottom.
Works without the need for a computer OS too

[Cerebus]

Bit tricky getting Gerbers out to send to the fab, and I've a suspicion that they wouldn't know what to do with a stack of lith film negatives/positives and if they did work it out I suspect you'd be in for an interestingly large bill.

[S. Petrukhin]

Looks like they haven't mentioned EasyEDA yet.
https://easyeda.com/editor

Very similar to KiCad, it contains a database of footprints for real components.

[nigelwright7557]

I use PCBCAD720, its just a few pounds on ebay. No dongle or tie in's. Just buy it and go.
Must have done about 300 pcb's with it now.
Wont import anything but has very good error checking which is vital for reliable pcb manufacture.

DISCLAIMER ADDED BY ADMIN: This user is the author of the software.

[Cerebus]

I use PCBCAD720, its just a few pounds on ebay. No dongle or tie in's. Just buy it and go.
Must have done about 300 pcb's with it now.
Wont import anything but has very good error checking which is vital for reliable pcb manufacture.

You might want to add a disclaimer here. What you post now is asking to get banned.

Well, let's hope that his programming is better than his English punctuation. Amazing what a mess a misplaced apostrophe, or a missing apostrophe, can make of your code. 

Nigel old chap, not cool recommending your own products without clearly noting your affiliation with them.

[Simon]

I'm starting to tire of this. Yes there is a perpetually licenced product, KiCad! If your making a commercial product then compete with the real commercial boys or just go home!

[Chris56000]

Hi!

In the early 2000s I worked on PCBs for an Aircraft to Ground telephone communication system for a former employer, using a British design package called Electronic Design Studio.

It wasn't cheap (over £1000) for all options, and came with a "key disk", supplied on floppy to licence it, and it checked the floppy each time you started it, and I made more calls to their technical support over problems from this "key disk" than any other issue!

Eventually after several years worth of complaints I got them to change it to a Serial Number activated system, but even that was notoriously unreliable as well!

One morning I logged onto the website to be greeted with one line of text:–

"The website is under new development and we hope to be back shortly"

A month or two after that, I asked our friendly RS Rep if he could tell me any more, and he said "the Manufacturers have gone bust – we've had to stop selling it and destroy our remaining stock of this software because we cannot support it!!"

During the time the publisher was in business, I asked if there was any means of backing up the licensing key but they refused point blank to help with this!

Whatever licence method EDS used, it certainly seemed to be effective as no "cracked" version ever came to light!

When the employer closed the Electronics Department ten years ago, they gave me the "Easy PC" licence they no longer needed, and the girl at Number One was happy for me to continue to use it to buy a V24 Upgrade just before Christmas – that's how this software should be licenced – fairly priced and no compulsory subscription nonsense, insistence on your design files becoming "their" property (Are you listening Altium?), or reliance on "dongles", "key disks" or "activation".

So yes, there is a well–priced "perpetual licenced" EDA product – try "Easy PC" or "Design Spark Pro" from RS – (Design Spark Pro is about 15% cheaper @ £375 plus VAT))  and there are no silly pin limits in the full version (Easy PC does offer much cheaper 500/1000/2000 pin count versions if you're only needing to make very small hobby designs).

The autorouter in Design Spark Free is pants, but Easy PC had absolutely no problem with my friend's board using it's free "Trace Router" – DSPCB free couldn't do it full stop!

Chris Williams

[Simon]

From what I gather there are no auto routers out there that are much good unless you are going in for serious stuff that costs a lot and helps particular situations. I'll never touch a distributors software again, got burnt with circuit studio thanks. Farnell this software is shit, well sir it's made by Altium. Altium this software is shit, well sir while we write the code (rip it out of another product and leave you so sort out the entrails) we have nothing to do with supporting it as it's Farnell's product as the sole distributor.

Hopefully KiCad keep it up as they are really going places now.

[Chris56000]

Hi!

The reason KiCAD does not appeal to me is that horrible typeface with it's "primary school" open "4" and the general shapes of the character glyphs in general, plus the drab and dark colours for the PCB layers that are applied by default!

I had a British Post Office Standards Binder a long time ago that said "Primary school style figures are out of place on any technical drawing", and to this end KiCAD is the only one where you are forced to use that horrible typeface!

I got, thanks to help from the UK Vintage Radio Forum Mods, Digitised versions of the British Standards and Post Office recommended sets of lettering styles, and this clinched "Easy–PC" for me – it can use them in the PCB Editor and they worked absolutely perfect when I got JLC PCB to make a design using these Fonts on the silkscreen!

Chris Williams

[nfmax]

I got, thanks to help from the UK Vintage Radio Forum Mods, Digitised versions of the British Standards and Post Office recommended sets of lettering styles, and this clinched "Easy–PC" for me – it can use them in the PCB Editor and they worked absolutely perfect when I got JLC PCB to make a design using these Fonts on the silkscreen!

Are those fonts in the form of bitmaps or TrueType fonts, or 'stroke' format? I gather KiCad uses stroke fonts for PCB layout, so they can be converted easily to Gerber. If you have your own stroke font it should be possible to replace the default - apparently there are format conversion tools in the source code.

What is not possible, and unlikely to arrive for quite a while if ever, is the ability to take an arbitrary TrueType font and use that on a PCB.

[PlainName]

From my previous life as a draughtsman, I am pretty sure my standard lettering guides had open 4s. They may look 'primary school' but they are like that for a reason.

There a many things to get worked up about with Kicad but the ident font doesn't strike me as one of them!

[Simon]

They say font changes will come in version 6 so that any font will be supported in the usual way, I wish the font was not so thin and the bold is too thick but it's not a major problem. It's a program funded by donations but is being developed and I personally have seen a bug I submitted fixed in days. Circuit studio has cost me so far over £1'000, I paid for an update that turned out not to be an update but just rearranging the ornaments on the mantlepiece and I gave up waiting for the next promised update. The answer to everything the program could not sensibly do was: of course you can do it, just follow this long winded procedure that only I the guy at farnell support knows about and now you too and meh, if you can't remember it that's a shame. Oh and KiCad works on 4k monitors natively unlike the pixelated crap that CS is.

[JohnnyMalaria]

What is not possible, and unlikely to arrive for quite a while if ever, is the ability to take an arbitrary TrueType font and use that on a PCB.

Ooh...Comic Sans

[Simon]

Comic Neue

[kony]

Mentor did bit dirty move lately, as the "perpetual" licenses now mean "we will send you new activation keys each year to each few years for the lastest version you paid mainentance for, even if you are not on active subscription anymore", and all the license keys have build in timeout now. This applies both to nodelocked and mobile compute (USB dongle key). I was not happy to find out either.

IMO, this is done to prevent any licenses trasfers out of control of official distribution channels, but is the most harsh way I had seen implemented by anyone by far.

[Simon]

So it's a perpetually given rental licence. Not the same. This means if they ever think they can wriggle out of the perpetual licences they have given they can switch right over to renting you the software.

[kony]

No. EULA, purchase order, invoice - everything says perpetual. Just that you are at their mercy of giving you new license keys you are eligible for as timeout has been build in into all keys. Annualy for corps on active subscription service, with longer period if you are without. Better to understand it as very annoying manual activation process with aim to check for legitimacy of the end user.

[nctnico]

I got, thanks to help from the UK Vintage Radio Forum Mods, Digitised versions of the British Standards and Post Office recommended sets of lettering styles, and this clinched "Easy–PC" for me – it can use them in the PCB Editor and they worked absolutely perfect when I got JLC PCB to make a design using these Fonts on the silkscreen!

Are those fonts in the form of bitmaps or TrueType fonts, or 'stroke' format? I gather KiCad uses stroke fonts for PCB layout, so they can be converted easily to Gerber. If you have your own stroke font it should be possible to replace the default - apparently there are format conversion tools in the source code.

What is not possible, and unlikely to arrive for quite a while if ever, is the ability to take an arbitrary TrueType font and use that on a PCB.

AFAIK Altium can do that. In the end you can render a font as strokes just like a polygon.

[nigelwright7557]

PCBCAD720 has a perpetual license.

[Simon]

PCBCAD720 has a perpetual license.

I and most of the forum tire of you trying to sell us your one man band software whilst acting all innocent and failing to declare you are the maker of it. If my patience wears thin enough I will do something about it!

[nctnico]

PCBCAD720 has a perpetual license.

I and most of the forum tire of you trying to sell us your one man band software whilst acting all innocent and failing to declare you are the maker of it. If my patience wears thin enough I will do something about it!

Maybe he didn't like this review and decided to do another spam-run on the forum:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/eda/pcbpcad51pcbpcad720-review/

[Uky]

Using Cadence OrCAD/Allegro with a USB hardware lock. The license tied to the dongle expires 2100.
That should suffice...

The Gerber fonts used for Layout (PCB Editor) is stroked. The "generic" setting is not very aestetically pleasing, but the proportions hight vs width as well as intercharacter spacing and photo width can be modified. The schematic editor uses vector graphics for circuit elements and Windows fonts for texts that can be changed. In order to easy differentiate between "0" and "O" I have downloaded "Andale Mono" and defined that font for the schematic editor.

[CJay]

When the employer closed the Electronics Department ten years ago, they gave me the "Easy PC" licence they no longer needed, and the girl at Number One was happy for me to continue to use it to buy a V24 Upgrade just before Christmas – that's how this software should be licenced – fairly priced and no compulsory subscription nonsense, insistence on your design files becoming "their" property (Are you listening Altium?), or reliance on "dongles", "key disks" or "activation".

God I used to love EasyPC, must have designed a hundred or so boards with their DOS version.

The DOS Autorouter was pretty OK too, it was a decent 'starting point' by which i mean I could lay out the parts on a board with a few dozen chips, it would then make a spirited attempt at routing it and I'd polish off the rest/re-route a few poorly placed tracks. 

[AndersJ]

The license tied to the dongle expires 2100.
That should suffice...

Yes, it should suffice,
if the vendor is still alive and kicking when the dongle breaks, or is lost.
If not,
you are on your own, and the expiration date means nothing.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
I also own a Volvo car.
I can use it as much as I want,
without asking Volvo for permission every year.
[...]

For now!  -  There is already a trend of GPS monitored insurance and so on...  can only be a matter of time until it is required that all cars are monitored "for security reasons" etc.

[srb1954]

Mentor did bit dirty move lately, as the "perpetual" licenses now mean "we will send you new activation keys each year to each few years for the lastest version you paid mainentance for, even if you are not on active subscription anymore", and all the license keys have build in timeout now. This applies both to nodelocked and mobile compute (USB dongle key). I was not happy to find out either.

IMO, this is done to prevent any licenses trasfers out of control of official distribution channels, but is the most harsh way I had seen implemented by anyone by far.

Mentor has had licenses that time out for a long time.

Where I was working at in the late 80's they used Mentor S/W and new license codes were sent out at the end of every year. One year Mentor forgot and when everyone got back to work in the new year the entire PCB design team had to sit round for a week twiddling their thumbs waiting for Mentor to deliver some new licenses codes.

[asmi]

AFAIK Altium can do that. In the end you can render a font as strokes just like a polygon.

Yes it can, and I think this is a major feature, despite being dismissed by people who only know English language. UTF-8 support is a must, and it's real shame that so few eCADs support it.

[nctnico]

AFAIK Altium can do that. In the end you can render a font as strokes just like a polygon.

Yes it can, and I think this is a major feature, despite being dismissed by people who only know English language. UTF-8 support is a must, and it's real shame that so few eCADs support it.

The alternative is to import an image (which Orcad Allegro can do) but it isn't very convenient.

[asmi]

The alternative is to import an image (which Orcad Allegro can do) but it isn't very convenient.

That is a really bad alternative - TT fonts are vector-bases, and so are Gerbers, but the image is not. There is always loss of information in conversions.

[olkipukki]

How about: TT font -> DFX each character -> OrCAD 'Alphabet' library, no fussing with images

[asmi]

How about: TT font -> DFX each character -> OrCAD 'Alphabet' library, no fussing with images

Each of 1M+ UTF-8 symbols? Doesn't sound like a sensible option to me.

[PlainName]

How about: TT font -> DFX each character

Don't think that would work since the TT font data describes the outline and the DFX describes the centreline (which you want for plotting/milling with gcode/gerbers/etc).

[nctnico]

How about: TT font -> DFX each character

Don't think that would work since the TT font data describes the outline and the DFX describes the centreline (which you want for plotting/milling with gcode/gerbers/etc).

Well, Orcad Allegro does allow to create pads from shapes (which are outlines). IIRC it is possible to scale these in the padstack editor as well.

[PlainName]

Sure, but Orcad knows how to convert the outline of a pad to something that can be manufactured. The point is that it doesn't know how or what to do when presented with a normal font. Unless you are hinting rather too subtly that you can do something like tell Orcad this font is a pad and - voila - there's your flash text rendered without any further messing about 

[cgroen]

PCBCAD720 has a perpetual license.

I checked the PCBCAD720 website just to see what it is about, the price seemed ok, but when scrolling down to see the screenshots, I think I know why it is cheap (and yes, even though I'm not "native English speaking" I know the difference between "cheap" and "affordable") 

[nctnico]

Sure, but Orcad knows how to convert the outline of a pad to something that can be manufactured. The point is that it doesn't know how or what to do when presented with a normal font. Unless you are hinting rather too subtly that you can do something like tell Orcad this font is a pad and - voila - there's your flash text rendered without any further messing about 

You'd have to place the text as individual pads manually. OTOH Allegro does have scripting abilities. It might be possible to construct a script which takes a text string and places the font-pads automatically. I have not looked into Allegro's scripting abilities at all however so I might be wrong.

[nigelwright7557]

I and most of the forum tire of you trying to sell us your one man band software whilst acting all innocent and failing to declare you are the maker of it. If my patience wears thin enough I will do something about it!

I simply said what I use doesnt have a subscription. I didnt put a link to ebay or a paypal address to pay for it.
I havent lied, I have done around 300 pcb's with it and updates are free for good.
I much prefer a piece of software where they will fix bugs immediately than have to wait 6 months for a none paid Kicad programmer to do it.
You pay your money (or not) and take your choice.

Ironically I dont sell to Australia due to shipping costs (a return would be a disaster in costs) so little point pushing it on here........

[Cerebus]

I and most of the forum tire of you trying to sell us your one man band software whilst acting all innocent and failing to declare you are the maker of it. If my patience wears thin enough I will do something about it!

I simply said what I use doesnt have a subscription. I didnt put a link to ebay or a paypal address to pay for it.

You sell it, therefore mentioning it in a context where not having a subscription amounts to an endorsement amounts to promoting it. Promoting something as if a neutral observer without clearly revealing that you personally will benefit if people buy it is dishonest, by all common standards of business ethics and long standing conventions of online discussion groups.

I havent lied, I have done around 300 pcb's with it and updates are free for good.
I much prefer a piece of software where they will fix bugs immediately than have to wait 6 months for a none paid Kicad programmer to do it.

More disingenuousness, as far as anyone here can tell you are the author and sole distributor of this software. If you're not please name the original author(s) that you buy it in from. You certainly can't deny that you sell it.

You pay your money (or not) and take your choice.

Ironically I dont sell to Australia due to shipping costs (a return would be a disaster in costs) so little point pushing it on here........

Are you really trying to tell us that you're not bright enough to associate the little flags next to everybody's names with the fact that the forum has posters and readers from across the whole globe? Which is it, you're making a deliberately dishonest argument about where you purportedly believe the readers are, or you're stupid?

Ironically your attempt at self-promotion has backfired spectacularly. I can't believe that anyone who has witnessed your rather weak attempt to promote your product along with your justifications for doing so would risk doing business with you. Even if your product is the dog's bollocks, advertising your cheerful willingness to engage in misleading business practices will take you off anyone's list of prospective suppliers.

[CJay]

I and most of the forum tire of you trying to sell us your one man band software whilst acting all innocent and failing to declare you are the maker of it. If my patience wears thin enough I will do something about it!

I simply said what I use doesnt have a subscription. I didnt put a link to ebay or a paypal address to pay for it.
I havent lied, I have done around 300 pcb's with it and updates are free for good.
I much prefer a piece of software where they will fix bugs immediately than have to wait 6 months for a none paid Kicad programmer to do it.
You pay your money (or not) and take your choice.

Ironically I dont sell to Australia due to shipping costs (a return would be a disaster in costs) so little point pushing it on here........

Lying by omission is a thing too.

If you actually came clean and put an ad/disclaimer in your signature you *might* even get customers to buy your software, as it stands you look to be trying to deceive.

[Simon]

I and most of the forum tire of you trying to sell us your one man band software whilst acting all innocent and failing to declare you are the maker of it. If my patience wears thin enough I will do something about it!

I simply said what I use doesnt have a subscription. I didnt put a link to ebay or a paypal address to pay for it.
I havent lied, I have done around 300 pcb's with it and updates are free for good.
I much prefer a piece of software where they will fix bugs immediately than have to wait 6 months for a none paid Kicad programmer to do it.
You pay your money (or not) and take your choice.

Ironically I dont sell to Australia due to shipping costs (a return would be a disaster in costs) so little point pushing it on here........

Hm so you fix bugs immediately? you statement about KiCad is untrue, I had something fixed in week, if you want to poke holes go have a go at circuit studio. The fact that you won't admit to being the developer/owner is just irritating to the point you will be classed as any other spammer soon. It's faster to ban you than write this reply!

[nigelwright7557]

Hm so you fix bugs immediately? you statement about KiCad is untrue, I had something fixed in week, if you want to poke holes go have a go at circuit studio. The fact that you won't admit to being the developer/owner is just irritating to the point you will be classed as any other spammer soon. It's faster to ban you than write this reply!

I am the developer but thought because I dont sell to Australia it was irrelevant.
It is a Aussie forum or did I get that wrong too ?

If someone from this forum has bought it I will happily refund you straight away and you can have it free of charge.

You really are blowing this out of all proportion. I sell maybe one copy a week at £4 for pcbcad51 and maybe 1 copy every 3  months of PCBCAD720 at £6.99

I make my money from USB scopes and audio gear and software/hardware consultancy.

I suspect this is just another chance for the "outrage" gang to have a rant.

[Simon]

This forum is worldwide. I suspect that like the YouTube viewership they are mostly in America, Just learn your flags and look at the profiles.

[nigelwright7557]

This forum is worldwide. I suspect that like the YouTube viewership they are mostly in America, Just learn your flags and look at the profiles.

The bloke who owns it is an Aussie.

[nigelwright7557]

Hm so you fix bugs immediately?

A week for Kicad ? 10 minutes is my quickest fix.

[nigelwright7557]

You sell it, therefore mentioning it in a context where not having a subscription amounts to an endorsement amounts to promoting it. Promoting something as if a neutral observer without clearly revealing that you personally will benefit if people buy it is dishonest, by all common standards of business ethics and long standing conventions of online discussion groups.

I can assure you I wasnt deliberately trying to be dishonest.
Whats the point when I could have just said I was the developer ? Then people could look it up download the demo and make up their own minds.
If its a steaming pile of poo then they wont buy it.
If they do want it they cant have it coz I dont post to Oz or USA.

Other ethnicities are a small group as its an English speaking forum.

[Cerebus]

I suspect this is just another chance for the "outrage" gang to have a rant.

No, you're treating us as stupid by lying to our faces and thinking you'll get away with it. If you don't understand why that makes people annoyed with you I implore you, for your own personal safety, to keep out of flat-roof pubs where people's reprimands start with a fist, not a mild "tut tut" such as you have received on here.

[Simon]

che? we all speak English here, location and ethnicity has no baring on the membership, the only requirement is that people post in English.

[nigelwright7557]

I suspect this is just another chance for the "outrage" gang to have a rant.

No, you're treating us as stupid by lying to our faces and thinking you'll get away with it. If you don't understand why that makes people annoyed with you I implore you, for your own personal safety, to keep out of flat-roof pubs where people's reprimands start with a fist, not a mild "tut tut" such as you have received on here.

In retrospect I should have remembered that forums are paranoid about "spamming"
I will try to be more careful in the future and apologise for any upset.

Some forums i have been on, especially paid for ones, will sometimes give you a sub-forum for your business or failing that an area for "Vendors".
A bit pointless for me on here as I dont post to Oz or USA.

[Cerebus]

I can assure you I wasnt deliberately trying to be dishonest.

Yeah right, despite pulling every trick in the book apart from telling the actually whole truth. If anybody reading that still you believes you at this point would they please get in touch with me as I have a colleague with a collection of very reasonably priced bridges to sell, he'll even throw in a sausage-ina-bun.

[Simon]

we have to try and be a bit consistent and you have had more leniency than your average rock up and just spam user but if everyone went around pushing their product it just makes it a shit show all round. Just stick a link in your signature.

[Simon]

I have a colleague with a collection of very reasonably priced bridges to sell, he'll even throw in a sausage-ina-bun.

Pray do tell

[CJay]

I can assure you I wasnt deliberately trying to be dishonest.

Yeah right, despite pulling every trick in the book apart from telling the actually whole truth. If anybody reading that still you believes you at this point would they please get in touch with me as I have a colleague with a collection of very reasonably priced bridges to sell, he'll even throw in a sausage-ina-bun.

Would that be good old Dibbler?

[Simon]

Shall we just leave it for now?

[Cerebus]

Would that be good old Dibbler?

Indeed, Throat himself.

[Simon]

Give us a clue, is this supposed to be a reference anyone would get?

[2N3055]

Give us a clue, is this supposed to be a reference anyone would get?

It's Terry Pratchett reference...Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is Discworld worst ever salesman....

[CJay]

Give us a clue, is this supposed to be a reference anyone would get?

It's Terry Pratchett reference...Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is Discworld worst ever salesman....

Anyone who could sell a Dibbler sosij would surely qualify as one of, if not the best salespeople on the Disc

[Cerebus]

Give us a clue, is this supposed to be a reference anyone would get?

It's Terry Pratchett reference...Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is Discworld worst ever salesman....

Anyone who could sell a Dibbler sosij would surely qualify as one of, if not the best salespeople on the Disc

I'm surprised that Simon didn't know the reference. Pratchett is almost obligatory reading in the kind of geek circles typified by EE, Comp. Sci. and Physics students.

C.M.O.T. Dibbler is probably best described as the [Disc]world's worst entrepreneur, but a great salesman - with his pies and sausages he'd have to be to survive. Character bio on wikipedia.

In my writing days in the 90s Terry and I travelled in the same circles and had many mutual friends. Like most author's characters, many of Pratchett's characters are loosely based on real people or amalgams of several real people, or are a tip of the hat to a friend (e.g. Davey Winder, a then mutual friend, was immortalised as Lord Winder). Terry wasn't as subtle as some, and if you know the individuals it isn't hard to guess who turned up as which character or part of a character. Unlike many of the Discworld characters I have no clue who the real world inspiration for C.M.O.T. Dibbler was and I'd dearly love to know.

[Simon]

I am afraid I lived a sheltered childhood and then got too busy with life to read any more.

[nigelwright7557]

I use PADS, with a dongle.
It works well, as long as PADS is still on the market, and Mentor supports it

What worries me, in the long run,

The volatility of vendors can be worrying.

I put a lot of trust in Microchip and Microsoft.
A few times I have had the rug pulled out from me with winforms in Microsoft Visual Studio.
Luckily they had a change of heart and put it back in.

Microchip removed MPASM from MPLAB X, so unless you keep an older version of MPLAB X you are stuffed.

I started off with EasyPC in about 1990 but got fed up with the bugs and wrote my own.

Something open source might be good where you can fix the bugs yourself if need be and you can keep hold of the source code.

[Simon]

unfortunately there is no easy solution, if there was it would have been found by now. Users just want software that will be there when they need it. I kind of resisted using KiCad while it stagnated but in the end it has proven to be the most stable answer for now and I suspect that even if development stopped it would have more longevity in linux than windows where microsoft these days will remove your programs during an üpdate"

[SilverSolder]

I've been testing Diptrace and KiCad over the last couple of weeks (for non-commercial use, but I nevertheless don't want a package that isn't perpetual, just like the OP).   I've ended up liking Diptrace more out of the two,  but both packages have cool things in them and are worth a test drive.

[nigelwright7557]

I've been testing Diptrace and KiCad over the last couple of weeks (for non-commercial use, but I nevertheless don't want a package that isn't perpetual, just like the OP).   I've ended up liking Diptrace more out of the two,  but both packages have cool things in them and are worth a test drive.

Its pretty time consuming to test all the pcbcad packages.
I usually reckon at least 3 days per package so  I really get into it.
Just to find on the third day  I find a deal breaker.

Its not like choosing a colour of something, it takes some serious pondering.

[SilverSolder]

I've been testing Diptrace and KiCad over the last couple of weeks (for non-commercial use, but I nevertheless don't want a package that isn't perpetual, just like the OP).   I've ended up liking Diptrace more out of the two,  but both packages have cool things in them and are worth a test drive.

Its pretty time consuming to test all the pcbcad packages.
I usually reckon at least 3 days per package so  I really get into it.
Just to find on the third day  I find a deal breaker.

Its not like choosing a colour of something, it takes some serious pondering.

My approach was crude:  jump right in and design a small board and see how it goes.   -  Diptrace was remarkable by how rarely I had to hit the Internet looking for help.  I submitted the design to the manufacturer after about three full days invested in learning by doing, sticking to only "the minimum necessary".

For this project (syncronous motor driver), it was necessary to create three custom designed components:  the 2n6666 transistor wasn't in the library, the TDA5144 wasn't there, and the motor itself was also created as a component just for fun.  There were some complications to solve, like dealing with tree grounds and a star ground - that took most of the time (the star ground was done with the help of the zero ohm resistor in the schematic).






I found KiCad much harder work.  That made the decision for me, because - as you know - there are only so many hours in a day! 

[RFdesigner]

Have to say, things are a bit rough here at times, haha.

Frankly, I don't mind reading a bit about this pcbcad720 product. I mean we hear enough about altium and the others, why not this.

In fact, while I have been slowly been getting up to speed on kicad, I took a just took a few minutes to look at the pcbcad youtube vids. And I have to say I am impressed this one guy wrote all this. Bravo dude!

As far as user interface, sure its a bit old school (like me maybe) but its simple and didnt look too much worse than the ($100'sk+ ) cadence chip design software Ive used for 25 years.

Perhaps this one man band can have his own thread here somewhere to help us come up to speed on how to use his product. My view is we should help out the small guy when we can.

Just my opinion.

[PlainName]

My view is we should help out the small guy when we can.

I believe most of us would be happy to do that. Also, those that aren't a fan of PCBCAD720 would be happy to ignore it entirely once having experienced it.

The problem that we're seeing here is simply that the chap is forever rubbishing other products and banging on about how his is far better. You surely can't have missed the $20K given the the Kicad chaps, or the more than 7K bugs (that aren't bugs), or how not placing parts exactly how he personally prefers them in a one-off operation is a massive bug, etc.

If the guy would just shut up with the dissing and stick to promoting his stuff as it really is, hardly anyone else would be saying anything.

[Simon]

Apparently PCB CAD is no longer available so i guess he gave up in the end. The problem with one man band software is that if anything happens to the author that is the end of your software. This is the first cost overhead that any company of more than 1 person will charge you for anything. The fact that they have a system that they work to and maintain so that more than one person can work on the same project or pick up from another person. Yes it's still not possible to make this totally seamless and is something I am struggling with at work (on their behalf) being the only electrical person but most companies "get it" and to solve it have to spend money and time dealing with it but people will pay for that as they will want to know their investment is safe. That said KiCad has had it's ups and downs and I think this has been due to the individuals involved, at the moment they are in a good place as the project lead is being employed full time to work on the project by a private company. I assume they figured that for what they would spend on a commercial package that they may loose access to the moment they stop paying they could strengthen the open source project and have a software package with less strings attached.

[scopeman]

SprintLayout6.0 as long as you don't need an autorouter and can live with 4 layers you can't beat it for the money. Updates are free, cost is minimal. no dongle. The easiest PCB CAD software I have ever used and I have used or tried nearly all of them.

I have used it for 10+ years after my dongled TangoPCB Series II+ would not work on modern operating systems.

Worth a look and a free fully functional demo (except save) is available.

https://www.electronic-software-shop.com/lng/en/electronic-software/sprint-layout-60.html?language=en

Sam
W3OHM

[Cerebus]

Out of curiosity I had a quick look at that. One huge drawback if I've understood it properly - no schematic capture, just direct PCB layout. That might be fine, even better possibly, for a simple adapter board with a few connectors on, but for anything more complex, no way. I can easily check a well laid out schematic by eye, but checking that everything that should be connected is connected without starting from a schematic - dead in the water on anything with more than 10-20 nets. Anything that you might save on the software you'll spend on re-spinning boards.

[Simon]

Out of curiosity I had a quick look at that. One huge drawback if I've understood it properly - no schematic capture, just direct PCB layout. That might be fine, even better possibly, for a simple adapter board with a few connectors on, but for anything more complex, no way. I can easily check a well laid out schematic by eye, but checking that everything that should be connected is connected without starting from a schematic - dead in the water on anything with more than 10-20 nets. Anything that you might save on the software you'll spend on re-spinning boards.

If I remember rightly I bought it once and then demanded a refund as they are two separate programs with no interaction, so just a digital drawing board. It's like my 3D cad software at work not being able to produce drawings of models and us having to then draw them whilst copying the model with no linked updating.

[scopeman]

I looked at the PCBCAD720 product and downloaded and installed the demo as well. The program reminded me of some CAD software that I used on dedicated workstations in the 80's and 90's (Intergraph?). Not at all intuitive or easy to use IMHO, but then again what would one expect for the cost of a couple of warm beers. Probably ok for entry level and someone that made a board or so a month for hobby work.

I don't mean to offend and I am sure that a lot of effort went into the PCBCAD720 program, but I could tell pretty quickly that it was not the tool for me, but as they say your mileage may vary and it may well be to your liking, but it was not my cup of tea.

In general if I can't get comfortable with CAD software in well under an hour, two at the most, I lose interest pretty quickly. This is coming from a person who suffered through learning the first DOS releases of AutoCAD where it took quite a long time to be somewhat proficient. The disadvantage then is there was no real competition so you had to learn what was available, obviously not the case today.

For PCB CAD programs I find any of them that force you to do a schematic first to be particularly painful as they don't like to work the way that I do.

The reason I say that is as an analog and RF designer I really have no need for an auto router and fancy bells and whistles that I will never use so forcing me to do the schematic in CAD first sometimes dose not work for me for several reasons.

I generally will either work the schematic out of my head or or just on a quadrille pad (my version of DaveCAD) and work the PCB layout from there. I may enter it in OrCAD (as I know how to use that tool) and if the PCB CAD tool can connect with it, I may use that feature but I would bet that in my 40+ career time I could count on one hand where I have used such a feature. In almost every case it was when I had an outside contractor or department who was doing a PCB layout under my supervision.

The last one I remember was when I used OrCAD for the schematic and the outside contractor used Mentor Graphics Expedition PCB back in 2007ish time frame.

This was a fairly complex 4 layer mixed signal PCB where I needed to contract out the layout work as I had other design work to do on the project along with a very short timeline with limited internal resources. If Sprint had been available then (I don't know if it was, as I had not heard of it) I could have used that tool internally.

Years later for fun I imported the 274-X Gerbers and the drill files from that project into Sprint and created files for a fully editable PCB in that software, so I am sure it could have been done with that tool. I did find that the 274-X Gerber import to PCB being very useful later in that project for making special test fixture boards that could easily adapt to what became a product that we produced unchanged for over 13 years, several lifetimes for an electronics design. I can thank Microchip for (still) producing the microprocessor used in that design to keeping that product version alive. We recently had to redesign it due to obsolescence of other components but that as they say, is another story.

Sure there are rare times when I had a digital design that had repetitive work to do, where an auto router could have helped, but for the most part copy and paste can be your friend too. I guess that is why I liked the prior TangoPCB Series II+ DOS and later the SprintLayout6.0 as I found it very easy to do manual layouts without any preliminary restrictions.

I have done quite a few very complex mixed signal/mixed technology PCB's with this software without the need for linkage between the PCB and the schematic. They all worked and most of those designs are still in production today, many for well over a decade.

Sure not having that linkage does require additional manual checking, but it does force you to become much better at layout. This is because you will inherently find yourself cross checking your layout as you go, rather than relying on a software tool to do the due diligence and then only find out that you painted yourself in a corner and left out a critical trace or component that at the last moment requires significant rework.

Perhaps as one who started out when PCB layout was done manually on a drafting board I still somewhat have an aversion to auto routers. Maybe I'll come around to one someday but I don't think for the type of work I generally do that having one is a necessity. 

The one thing that would be nice for them to implement in Sprint would at least be a netlist in/out feature. I have pressed for this, but I guess the 70K users of the program have not found it to be on their list of wanted features. However I have found the company to be very responsive to suggestions from their users, as they have implemented many of my suggestions so I do expect to see incremental enhancements in the future.

After using more complex PCB software at my many day jobs at several companies as an EE (P-CAD, OrCAD, Altium, Protel, VeriBest, etc.)
I just found that the simpler Sprint product worked very well for me and even though the last company I worked for bought Altium I found it to have a very steep learning curve (not to mention the cost). I reserved it for PCB designs that required that level of performance and I still used Sprint for boards that I needed to crank out quickly.

It was just a matter of what was needed to get the job completed at the time and also one tends to use the tools which one is most familiar at crunch time. 

It still does amaze me what one can do with low cost entry level software. IIRC Altium was 140 times the cost of the Sprint product. Altium is clearly not a tool within the financial means of most hobbyists. Maybe if they offered a low cost not for profit version they would get more traction and those who used it for hobby work would be more likely to recommend the product to their employers for professional use.

I also have tried KiCAD but as of today I am not very comfortable with it. Maybe someday I'll need to dig into it, but for anything that I have currently planned on the PCB project list I think I am covered.

Well sorry if I rambled on a bit here, but I hope that my ramblings might be useful to some of you.

All the best,

Sam
W3OHM

[SilverSolder]

I've been testing Diptrace and KiCad over the last couple of weeks (for non-commercial use, but I nevertheless don't want a package that isn't perpetual, just like the OP).   I've ended up liking Diptrace more out of the two,  but both packages have cool things in them and are worth a test drive.

Its pretty time consuming to test all the pcbcad packages.
I usually reckon at least 3 days per package so  I really get into it.
Just to find on the third day  I find a deal breaker.

Its not like choosing a colour of something, it takes some serious pondering.

My approach was crude:  jump right in and design a small board and see how it goes.   -  Diptrace was remarkable by how rarely I had to hit the Internet looking for help.  I submitted the design to the manufacturer after about three full days invested in learning by doing, sticking to only "the minimum necessary".

For this project (syncronous motor driver), it was necessary to create three custom designed components:  the 2n6666 transistor wasn't in the library, the TDA5144 wasn't there, and the motor itself was also created as a component just for fun.  There were some complications to solve, like dealing with tree grounds and a star ground - that took most of the time (the star ground was done with the help of the zero ohm resistor in the schematic).






I found KiCad much harder work.  That made the decision for me, because - as you know - there are only so many hours in a day! 

Just to follow up / close my comment:  the assembled board worked the first time, with not a single thing departing from expectations.  Of course, it is a relatively simple board in the bigger scheme of things, but that still doesn't stop it being a hole-in-one!