Electronics > PCB/EDA/CAD

pins and PC needed

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BikeisDusty:
First post on the EEV.  Glad to have found this place.

I am going to start doing processor designs and programmaning as a hobby/small biz/teaching my son.  I have a project lined up with a friend of mine looking to improve the usage of a several components.  Should be a good project to start with as it really is just a bank or relays, a dial, and display.  I would also like to get into wireless projects as well.  I will need to get access to a PCB CAD program, like DIPTrace.  I have a few questions that I cannot find answers to.

- On the licensing, what is meant by pins?  Like 500 pins or 2000 pins?

- For DIPtrace or similar, what is recommended for PC.  Looks like a good gaming laptop with I7 and separate graphics card will be ideal.  Agree?  My current laptop is about dead, so I need a upgrade anyways.

- Is KiCAD a better place to start than DIPtrace?


As a note, I am a seasoned engineer that has been working with wireless RF hardware, devices, and systems. Most of you board level guys would call me a product guy as I am more of a systems or box level engineer.  I currently manage a team that is focused on next generation wireless hardware, IP core to base station, for 3G and 4G wireless.   I would like to expand my craft to doing board level design. My son is interested in learning programming and robots.  So why not make them ourselves...

shebu18:
The license is about the limit of pins you an use in a schematic.
I would suggest diptrace, i tried them both and stayed with diptrace. I find it much easier to use, make new parts in it.
A gaming laptop will be a bi to much but it would be good if you also want to do some 3D stuff/play games.

BikeisDusty:
I am not a gammer, just thought the gaming laptop to get the external graphics module instead of integrated. So you think it is ok to have a i5 with integrated graphics to save a few hundred bucks?

shebu18:
If you want the laptop only for writing code, creating PCB's, viewing some movies, browsing, music than yas, a i5 is just right but an i3 also would fit your needs. Think also for the future, how often do you want to upgrade your laptop?

westfw:

--- Quote ---what is recommended for PC.  Looks like a good gaming laptop with I7 and separate graphics card will be ideal.  Agree?
--- End quote ---
Frankly, I don't think that the average Schematic/PCB package requires, or uses, many (any?) of the advanced features present on high-end gaming graphics cards.  A "gaming laptop", i7, and fancy graphics card are probably all overkill.

"pins" means the total number of pins on all the components.  So if you have a 28-pin microprocessor, a crystal with two caps, a current-limiting resistor and an LED, that would be 38 pins.  An Arduino (uno r3) has about 250 pins.  A "Really Bare Bones Board" (Arduino variant) has about 100.

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