To contractors/self-employed PCB designers - what CAD program do clients want?

[Robert.Adams]

Hello Everyone,

I got permission from my boss to do PCB contract work on the side and from what I can tell from online forums the two most popular programs for contract work are Eagle and Altium.  Since I hate Eagle I'm considering upgrading from DipTrace to Altium.  From your experience what requirements do clients have on CAD file deliverables?

Regards,
Bob

[nctnico]

Don't bother with CAD files. There are too many different programs and versions. Just use what you like most and deliver Gerbers, drill file, X-Y for pick&place, component overlay in PDF and  schematics in PDF.

[Robert.Adams]

Don't bother with CAD files. There are too many different programs and versions. Just use what you like most and deliver Gerbers, drill file, X-Y for pick&place, component overlay in PDF and  schematics in PDF.

That would be ideal but I don't think that is a good way for a company/individual to contract out PCB design work.  If they want revisions in the future they'll be stuck trying redesigning from scratch or getting the original designer to do it.

[8086]

I use what I always use, and provide Gerbers and/or source files depending on the contracted deliverables.

If they want to specify a different package, they will either provide it to me or I can purchase it at their cost.

Everyone wants something different.

[Alphatronique]

Hi

whit price of modern Professional CAD  find potential  customer first then ask what it what
and go whit the majority and long tern job ..

Personally i use Zuken Cadstar ,very powerful  and not so common  ,so this stop the leak of my library to competitor
if customer not what to be captive it still may import it in Altium 

but this also change whit your customer  base

some was bigger corporate that request to use it tool ..
some was smaller that not what to handle CAD and Or Manufacturing at all  ,so it not have any engendering on site
and let you handle all of this (vast majority of my customer)


 

[KJDS]

Most of the places I've worked at or with in the last few years have used Pads

[free_electron]

The big three are Mentor , Cadence and Altium.

Mentor: Pads or Dxdesigner
Cadence : Allegro or Orcad
Altium

Companies like Seagate are on Mentor. Apple is on cadence. Tesla is on Altium. But those are 'big boys' for smaller businesses i don't know.

[Alphatronique]

Hi

you forgot bosh and Sony that use Zuken ;-)

[Mechatrommer]

what CAD program do clients want? i think a good and rationale client will ask this program.... can you do the job? how long it will take? how much it cost? the dumb one will ask what tool do you use. imho. i have to pick random option just to see the result, so i guess the other 4 who picked the same did for the same reason.

[KJDS]

what CAD program do clients want? i think a good and rationale client will ask this program.... can you do the job? how long it will take? how much it cost? the dumb one will ask what tool do you use. imho. i have to pick random option just to see the result, so i guess the other 4 who picked the same did for the same reason.

Usually if a company is using a contractor it is either because they are too small to have any pcb design capability or more commonly because they have limited layout guya and need extra resource to hit a deadline. When that happens, whoever else they use must use the same system that they do to allow for respins and redesigns.

[Alphatronique]

Hi Mechatrommer

when i do job  for GE it ask me 2 thing   ,show me your XYZ CAD Valid License and how long it take for do the JOB

major company have massive version and revision control and ton of paperwork
it not let you chose which software use most of time it even supply the CAD seat  just for make sure

but yes when do job for start-up or smaller firm it not really card of CAD tool until it become bigger
and find it need to have control ,since one a product was certified you not what to mess whit it ..

[nctnico]

Don't bother with CAD files. There are too many different programs and versions. Just use what you like most and deliver Gerbers, drill file, X-Y for pick&place, component overlay in PDF and  schematics in PDF.

That would be ideal but I don't think that is a good way for a company/individual to contract out PCB design work.  If they want revisions in the future they'll be stuck trying redesigning from scratch or getting the original designer to do it.

That is a risk but a major part of most PCB designs is the component placement. A couple of years ago one of my clients wanted to make some changes to an existing design made in an older PCB package called Layo1. Even though I have worked with that package before it was much faster to just redo the PCB from scratch while copying most of the component placement using my current PCB package.

[Robert.Adams]

what CAD program do clients want? i think a good and rationale client will ask this program.... can you do the job? how long it will take? how much it cost? the dumb one will ask what tool do you use. imho. i have to pick random option just to see the result, so i guess the other 4 who picked the same did for the same reason.

Usually if a company is using a contractor it is either because they are too small to have any pcb design capability or more commonly because they have limited layout guya and need extra resource to hit a deadline. When that happens, whoever else they use must use the same system that they do to allow for respins and redesigns.

We had a temp worker at my full time and it was for that reason.  Having one layout person across all programs is a pain.  We use Allegro but there is no way I can afford that.  I have a two week trial of Altium and so far I love it, much better than Diptrace & KiCad.

[nctnico]

At some point you just have to shell out the cash. If you are lucky you can buy the software from a company which went bankcrupt or no longer uses their CAD software (just make sure you get the media and keys).

[snoopy]

what CAD program do clients want? i think a good and rationale client will ask this program.... can you do the job? how long it will take? how much it cost? the dumb one will ask what tool do you use. imho. i have to pick random option just to see the result, so i guess the other 4 who picked the same did for the same reason.

Usually if a company is using a contractor it is either because they are too small to have any pcb design capability or more commonly because they have limited layout guya and need extra resource to hit a deadline. When that happens, whoever else they use must use the same system that they do to allow for respins and redesigns.

We had a temp worker at my full time and it was for that reason.  Having one layout person across all programs is a pain.  We use Allegro but there is no way I can afford that.  I have a two week trial of Altium and so far I love it, much better than Diptrace & KiCad.

I gave up on Altium and went back to Protel 99SE. I still can't work out how the library management works in Altium. For a single user who likes to edit and update library components Altium makes no sense at all to me. Also a lot of pcb houses handle 99 format files directly so it's impossible to make a mistake with the gerber translation.

cheers

[Gribo]

For PCB layout jobs, all of my clients required Gerbers & Excellon drills, one also asked for ODB++ files. For design jobs, all of them asked for OrCad/Allegro .DSN files, few asked for .SCH (PADS, AcePlus and DxDesigner) too, but I could not deliver those as I don't have access to those tools and the Mentor logic viewer does not import all the properties.

Mind you, I am in Israel and the De facto standard here is OrCad/Allegro.

[peter.mitchell]

All of the people I have worked for request a number of things;
Manufacturing outputs for a single board
Manufacturing outputs for a customer specified panel size
PDF schematic
Excel spread sheet of detailed BOM
PDF of BOM
PDF of each layer.
A picture/ accurate 3D rendering of an assembled board.
Original design files.


Then, depending on the customer they ask for other things, like an assembled board, use of a specific cad program ect.
The important things they want straight up though are manufacturing outputs for their manufacturers, PDFs for easy printability and opening without the cad software, they want a pic of an assembled board so they can see the final product and they can show their assembler, they want the original design files, so if they need to revise it, they can pass the files on.

Depending on who you work for, they may specify the cad program, but if they do, then it doesn't matter what you use, because you have to use that or you'll not get the job.

[AndyC_772]

We had a temp worker at my full time and it was for that reason.  Having one layout person across all programs is a pain.  We use Allegro but there is no way I can afford that.  I have a two week trial of Altium and so far I love it, much better than Diptrace & KiCad.

Check out Orcad PCB Designer (Standard, or if you need it, Professional). It's the exact same binary as Allegro and completely file compatible.

The difference is in the set of features which are enabled, but depending on the complexity of the boards you're designing, that may not be too much of an issue.

[EEVblog]

Eagle is basically not used in professional industry.
Altium have the breakdown in a recent investor presentation. But whether that is number of seats or $ share, I don't think it's a real indication of client needs for contract work, Altium would be much higher than PCB in the freelance PCB design environment for example, IME, it would be at least 30%.
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20140228/pdf/42n245lfpcxq8f.pdf

[EEVblog]

What it comes down to is this, if you go around advertising your EDA services to any major client and advertise that you use Eagle, or Diptrace, or KiCAD, you'll be laughed out of the room. It's an instant sign of being an "amateur".
So if you are in the contract design game you'll need a "pro" package, if anything for credibility. On the affordability scale that usually means Altium, hence why probably the majority of freelance designers will offer Altium, because it's a pro package they can afford. At some point you'll get asked for Altium, so you might as well have it. If you get asked to use Eagle then you just buy it for the job as it's not a big outlay.
I'm not up on the pricing of the other pro packages these days, but I believe they have always costed more and still cost more than Altium. Frankly that is the only why Altium have survived as a company while they went off on a decade of folly into areas no one wanted - there was no competition at that price point.

[Kjelt]

I have no idea what other companies do and use but our company is a real big company and we have our own software with own managed custom libraries. We have a couple of pcb designers under contract but for large projects we hire more from outside and those pcb designers are invited to work inside the company with that specific software package and libraries right next to the hardware designer that knows which traces are critical and how the layout should look like. I suspect more very large companies do it that way.

If it is a middle sized company then I think Dave is right and they know their business and want a pro with pro software tools and packages.

If it is a small company they might not care that much and care more about costs and the final pcb functions like it should, which is why I would be very reluctant to do this kind of business in the first place, so much can go wrong with EMC and layout and who's to blame?

[KJDS]

If it is a small company they might not care that much and care more about costs and the final pcb functions like it should, which is why I would be very reluctant to do this kind of business in the first place, so much can go wrong with EMC and layout and who's to blame?

The engineer from the sourcing company who you got to sign off the layout. I've never seen it done any other way.

[AndyC_772]

I completely agree; I would never lay out someone else's design and then be held responsible for its timing margins, EMC performance or any other board-related parasitic effects. I might make some suggestions back to the designer if I spot a potential problem, but ultimately the best layout people are those who do exactly what they're told. Not because the designer actually does know better, but because the designer is *always* the one whose neck is on the block if something goes wrong.

Cadence Orcad PCB Designer (Standard) is about £2000 here in the UK, and the Professional edition (which adds support for a lot of high speed design rules) is about twice that. Personally I think both are priced about right; the Standard edition is fine for occasional (professional) use, and the Pro edition would certainly justify itself if it were used regularly. Both also offer a seamless upgrade path to Allegro.

[JuKu]

Orcad, mostly. Self-explanatory.
Eagle. These companies are starting with electronics, and bought the cheap package to get started. Now the job is too big or too difficult and they are hiring a pro.
Altium. Another pro company sharing the load. Altuim just doesn't have the market share here.
Something else. Everyone has their favourites.

In this order. On the other hand, the cad I use has never been a real issue. Once we used a data translation service, the cost of that was a no-issue, peanuts compared to me learning another software (small hundreds for pcb data, schematics went in directly).

[nctnico]

What it comes down to is this, if you go around advertising your EDA services to any major client and advertise that you use Eagle, or Diptrace, or KiCAD, you'll be laughed out of the room. It's an instant sign of being an "amateur".

I wouldn't consider Eagle a software package for amateurs. They have been around for too long and have a very large user base. It is used by many small to midsize companies around the world. Last week I got an e-mail from one of the bigger assembly houses in the NL with a list of CAD packages they support and Eagle is on the list together with 14 other packages. Actually they specifically mentioned being able to handle Eagle brd files in that e-mail instead of any other package.

[nctnico]

If it is a small company they might not care that much and care more about costs and the final pcb functions like it should, which is why I would be very reluctant to do this kind of business in the first place, so much can go wrong with EMC and layout and who's to blame?

I deal with EMC (or better said: CE compliance) in a very simple way: I tell customers I try to design with CE compliance in mind but there is no guarantee a design will pas without an actual (expensive) test. So if customers want to have their product tested for CE compliance they can get that but it costs them extra money for testing and making the changes.