What does everyone think of Circuit Studio?

[lewis]

Just downloaded and installed the trial version of Altium's Circuit Studio, been playing with it for an hour or so and I actually quite like it. Got used to it fairly quickly. It's a hell of a step up from the CAD package I use at the moment (Seetrax XL Designer - don't ask).

I've been using Seetrax's products since year dot, I know the many MANY workarounds in order to get things done. I've never really tried anything else because I've never had time to. Running a business and all that.... But now it's time to upgrade to something much more professional which frankly I should have done years ago.

I know Altium takes a ripping on this forum, but their products seem pretty industry standard.

What does everyone think of Circuit Studio compared to the full Altium Designer and other packages? Is it worth the effort of going through the learning curve, or is there something comparable which I'd be better spending my time on? (That's not Kicad, Diptrace, DEX, or Eagle)

[ehughes]

It think it  is a good product, just bad pricing.  It covers most of what people need in a package.

If you do find it easy to use,  it might not be a bad way to go.    FYI, I am biased as I do use Altium Designer.   I have used all the other tools (except the high end Zuken Tools) and it is by far the most bang for the buck.

 

[EEVblog]

What does everyone think of Circuit Studio compared to the full Altium Designer and other packages? Is it worth the effort of going through the learning curve, or is there something comparable which I'd be better spending my time on? (That's not Kicad, Diptrace, DEX, or Eagle)

if your goal is to get experience in a tool that is used in Industry, then Altium is the best way to go by far. Circuit Maker is close enough to Altium Designer that you could confidently put "Altium experience" on your resume.

[beng]

G'day All,
I just found out that Altium also have a student pricing (if you are lucky enough to be studying Electronics), all you need to do is give them a call to discuss it. The pricing is VERY reasonable.

I do not know if they provide the same for Circuit Studio.

Rgds Ben

[Wilksey]

mmm Seetrax Ranger / XL Designer, Upgraded once, had to redo all of the bloody power planes!

[Eternauta]

Please a question for CircuitStudio user's, could export schematics netlist in other format or can do edif export?

[lewis]

Thanks everyone for your comments, I've had no time to play with Circuit Studio since the original post, but will do this weekend.

It's pretty expensive, but not outside the realms of possibility, I guess I'd like to know if you get what you pay for.

[Robaroni]

I guess there must be some of you who remember when Altium drastically cut their prices and basically screwed everyone who paid top dollar. That kind of stuff bothers me... call me old fashion!

There's more, I owned the original CM and ended with CM2000 that I bought from the original designers before Altium bought them out. Actually many of us back then liked CM and the Protel platform even though it had its bugs. I especially liked the simulator. Altium said they were going to clean it up and not to worry it wasn't going the way of the Dodo bird.... well it did, they completely trashed it! I used it for a few years after that to do small to medium boards and magazine articles but then better programs came out  and I started looking around. NI workbench, etc. but I really don't like the Workbench simulator, never have.

So yesterday, for whatever reason, I get a call from Altium wanting to sell me Designer and I flat out tell the guy I'm not paying for it after that vaudeville act so he starts telling me about Studio at 3k... but hints that you can talk down the price. I haven't tried the demo or talking down the price but like I said, Altium scares me.

Eagle, sorry it's a kiddie program, why E14 is selling both, I don't exactly know but I have my hunches.

Right now I'm using Labcenter. Truthfully I like the simulator as much as my old CM, just don't try to make a large board with the thing unless you want to start breaking windows in your office and don't raise any questions about bugs that go from one update to the next. Now they're introducing multiple track movements in the new version. I can't imagine what I'd break using that!

So, are any of you actually making realistic boards with CS, is there real support for the 500 bucks a year, and did any of you get it at a discount?  Oh, and how bad are the bugggssss?

Thanks for the help,
Rob

[Wilksey]

Sounds like you should stick to Proteus.

From what people have said, the full AD can be bought if not the same as but near enough to CS.

The trouble is that I can tell at the moment, people that have tried CM or CS have Altium, and, naturally compare, but they have no reason to use CM or CS if they already have Altium, unless for hobby projects (in CM case) and then, what are they likely to actually make?  Probably nothing like you want to see, i'd give it more time, wait till people are actually using it actively a bit more, or bite the bullet and buy Altium.

As far as I know, at the moment, CS isn't compatible with AD, I think the schematics open but no the PCB files from memory.

[LabSpokane]

There are no discounts on CS.  There are large discounts on AD, but not close to what people are reporting on here in my neck of the woods. 

What are the bugs you are seeing in Proteus? 

[Robaroni]

Hi Labspokane,

The autorouter makes design rules errors. Let's say I want to make a PCB and I want to have no vias on pads so I remove the top pad from the stack before autorouting (my board house charges less for prototype boards that don't have pad vias). The autorouter runs over the missing pad and creates a design rule error as the trace hits the pin hole (which it should). Now most of you are probably like me, I don't use the autorouter much but when I do I get these types of errors.

When manually routing you can't keep traces in an orthogonal plane and you also get traces that do odd things when a pad is not on the same snap, etc. Track selection, thickness, layer changing are all cumbersome tasks and the "modify route" option doesn't work if the trace has too many angle changes. Running wires on the schematic side and tracks on the board side need some real reworking.

Here's something that drives me nuts. You can block select components in the schematic for instance, but Windows convention is not allowed so you can't deselect or select components to add to the selected block. For some reason LabCenter doesn't see this as a problem even though I'm not the only one who has realised the issue.

Tech support is not the best, I had a problem with extension issues where the PCB side wasn't working at all. LabCenter was next to useless, I had to find the problem myself, it turned out to be a conflict with TI's TINA which I download to do sims on their components. I wound up dumping TINA to make Proteus work. If you ask a question about a bug you often never get a response.

Here's the thing, basically I like the program for small to medium boards and it makes a publishable drawing, so I guess for $1500 to 2k it's about all you get but I have a couple of larger boards coming up so I have to think about what I'm going to do for a solution.

Rob

 

[K6TR]

What does everyone think of Circuit Studio compared to the full Altium Designer and other packages? Is it worth the effort of going through the learning curve, or is there something comparable which I'd be better spending my time on? (That's not Kicad, Diptrace, DEX, or Eagle)

The rap against Circuit Studio (CS) is two fold. The first is price. As others have already pointed $3500 is mighty steep. If you have a business need for it and willing to commit that type of money you might as well dig up the extra 6 grand for Altium Designer (AD). Second Circuit Studio (CS) is NOT a cut down version of Altium Designer (AD). It is more like Circuit Maker (CM) which is free. In that respect CS is a dead-ender, if you want to upgrade to AD from CS you have to start over from scratch. The money you have sunk into CS is money down the pit. I would imagine that Altium could initiate a program to credit existing CS License Holders the cost of the license to apply to the purchase of Designer. And I think this is one of two courses of action Altium will eventually have to implement in order to save CS. The other being lowering the cost of the license to the 500 - 1000 dollar range.

I use DIP Trace with Electra Autorouter for most of my work. I will download Circuitmaker and will familiarize myself with it but will stick with Dip Trace for the bulk of my work. Dip Trace is an excellent program. It's short coming is the abominable Documentation and nonexistent video tutorials. I can forgive Novram for that because they are a small fish in the kettle engaging in a herculean effort to play catch up with the big fish. In that respect they are doing an admirable job. In terms of capability I expect to see Dip Trace running with Altium in a few years.

[Robaroni]

Sorry for not posting for awhile on this but I really wanted to use this program in depth  before I commented. What I did was buy the latest Proteus and they worked out many of the things that bugged me. It's turning out to be a solid program. I'm doing small to medium sized boards and for the ~$1,500 I paid it's got a lot of bang for the buck.
I don't use the autorouter much but it's there if I ever want too.
The thing I love is the advanced simulator (I own the #2 package with advanced simulation) which I recommend you go for if you get this program. It beats Electronics Workbench hands down in my opinion.
The help is getting much better now too. I see they're starting to advertise more so they must be starting to get a following. Proteus is so much better than Eagle that it's not even a contest. I started with Protel years ago and it's a good EDA platform that's why I looked into AD. Their CM might be good and I'm interested if any of you guys has gotten deep into it. Again, Altium just scares me with their policies!
Right now I'm sticking with Proteus, it's doing everything I need and I'm getting very good boards back from my board house. Also once you invest time to learn a program it's a pain to drop it for another one, that's what I did when I went from Eagle to Proteus.
It's enticing to get a full blown program cheap like Eagle but you still have the EDA learning curve so pick your program well. Cheap only goes so far!

Rob