Electronics > PCB/EDA/CAD
Looking for new PCB software and to drop my old one, what are your suggestions?
thm_w:
--- Quote from: james_s on November 10, 2022, 01:05:49 am ---I went to KiCad about 14 years ago and never looked back, it's been great.
--- End quote ---
Of course now its great, but 14 years ago it was barely usable, so I'm impressed.
james_s:
--- Quote from: thm_w on November 10, 2022, 10:06:19 pm ---Of course now its great, but 14 years ago it was barely usable, so I'm impressed.
--- End quote ---
Maybe it was 12 years? I've forgotten now. At the time Eagle was the defacto hobbyist standard and I tried everything else I could get my hands on, they were all pretty bad, KiCad didn't seem much worse.
JPortici:
--- Quote from: Doctorandus_P on November 10, 2022, 12:56:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: WarFreak131 on November 09, 2022, 07:36:37 pm ---
I installed DipTrace last night and have been getting along with it rather well...
I have yet to install KiCard...
--- End quote ---
(I left in your extra "r" typo).
I'd be curious to read about a comparison between those two from a beginners perspective.
I'm very strongly biased towards open source software (and the whole philosophy behind it), and thus am not even even capable of giving diptrace a fair review myself.
Apparently Diptrace is a bit easier to learn, but I like the many shortcut keys in KiCad, which allows you to do many things quickly once you've learned them. Library management is a bit bare-bones in KiCad, but it "works" adequately. Diptrace may be better here though.
The "Interactive Router" in KiCad is an extremely handy function, and I believe diptrace does not have that (or something comparable). The ease with which you can push existing tracks aside to make more room for yet another track or squeeze in an extra via has allowed me to design denser PCB's then I would have dared to make otherwise.
I guess both packages are quite comparable in functionality but work a bit "differently" from each other. But as a long time KiCad user, I do know I'd never ever would want to work without the push and shove mode of the interactive router. That one really is a game changing feature.
I also had a short peek at the diptrace forum. There does not seem to be much happening there. It's curiously quiet but I don't know the reason for that. Maybe a Diptrace user can explain. In comparison, the KiCad forum is buzzing with activity (although I realize that is not necessarily a good thing when observed as an isolated parameter).
--- End quote ---
Longtime diptrace user, when i was a beginner i loathed kicad. I am probably going to try it again in the near future (i have a 6 layer board in mind, my license is 4 layers only. Also, if i decide to pull the plug on windows and native diptrace is not there yet)
Diptrace was very easy to get started with. I'm still on version 3, as i didn't want to bother paying for the upgrade.
Most of the new features solved ancient quirks that you could always work around (also a lot changed in the file format)
would be nice but it's not worth to me paying for it. If i'll need to make bigger layouts, maybe...
Yes, there is not much activity on the forum, but that's what it is for closed source software: Admins take feedback, implement, then there are a few release cycles every year. No nightly builds, daily updates, mods to explore, changes are slow to come, but the upside is that diptrace is a tool that does exactly what it has to, it's one of the most stable pieces of software i use.
To be honest, there isn't much use of the forum other than feature request / comment on releases
WarFreak131:
--- Quote from: JPortici on November 11, 2022, 11:30:01 am ---Longtime diptrace user, when i was a beginner i loathed kicad. I am probably going to try it again in the near future (i have a 6 layer board in mind, my license is 4 layers only. Also, if i decide to pull the plug on windows and native diptrace is not there yet)
Diptrace was very easy to get started with. I'm still on version 3, as i didn't want to bother paying for the upgrade.
--- End quote ---
One of the things that attracted me to DipTrace is that they have pretty generous pricing/upgrade options. I think the freeware version is 300 pins + 2 layers. If you want to go with the non-profit license, the 500 pins + 2 layers version is free, and higher versions are discounted heavily (Unlimited version goes from $995>$358). Edition upgrades like Standard > Extended only costs the price difference between the two versions. And version upgrades like 3.X to 4.X are only 25% of the full price.
SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: james_s on November 11, 2022, 04:35:11 am ---
--- Quote from: thm_w on November 10, 2022, 10:06:19 pm ---Of course now its great, but 14 years ago it was barely usable, so I'm impressed.
--- End quote ---
Maybe it was 12 years? I've forgotten now. At the time Eagle was the defacto hobbyist standard and I tried everything else I could get my hands on, they were all pretty bad, KiCad didn't seem much worse.
--- End quote ---
Oh yeah. KiCad was not that great back then, but it was usable. Heck, I had tried it around 2004/2005 IIRC and designed a couple small boards with it. At the time, there was Eagle as you mentioned, and Proteus which was affordable. There was otherwise Protel DXP (which was going to become Altium Designer), which was already pretty expensive (but license prices have skyrocketed since then).
Free or low-cost solutions were not that abundant.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version