Free Altium is Coming

[c4757p]

...saving offline Should not be free, for the same reasons that we dont want this to be the last release from Altium. IF you make money with it, concerned about IP, dont want your data directly sent to NSA, KGB , Australian Secret Intelligence Service, and who knows where else, pay up. Simple as that.

I never said Altium should change this. I agree with you, I don't see how they could make money otherwise. I just said I won't like the software if this is how it is. They're free to make things I don't like...

[zapta]

I don't think the competition (eagle and diptrace) do that.

[Rigby]

All our bits are captured and on file anyway.  If anyone on this forum even has an arrest record, the rest of us all have an eye on us, because we're communicating here.  Don't think for a second that your data isn't already captured.

Doesn't matter what your country you're in.  Your data is known to the NSA if it isn't encrypted, and if your key is on disk your encrypted data is known.  No exceptions.

[s3t]

What's going on with Maker Faire, why no updates?

Makers who have used other "free PCB layout tools" for a while, when introduced to circuitmaker be like
*** IMAGE REMOVED BY MODERATOR ***

[mikeselectricstuff]

This is not a professional tool, dont consider it as one. It is not here to replace AD.

Not the free version, but if they expect people to pay for upgrades etc. so they can actually make any money from it, there needs to be an obvious upgrade path to it being a profesional quality tool. A cloud-only system fails in this respect.
 Nobody will ever make enough money to be viable from a serious PCB tool that doesn't meet the needs of the professional market.

[DerekG]

It's different from free eagle, the competition.

The maker/hacker/hobbyist market that Eagle supports at no/low cost is the exact market that Altium is targeting.

All Altium had to do was to offer these users a slightly bigger board size limit to what Eagle currently offers.

But no, Altium think they can do a better job by reinventing the wheel.

Time will tell if their wheel is accepted en masse.

[sakujo7]

Here are some screen shots Altium gave to me to share:

This has potential.

Assuming that sanity prevails and they offer an 'offline mode' or at least the ability to do local backups from the cloud (as weird as that sounds...), I wonder what sort of pricing they would go with. They would be balancing the risk of pulling people away from buying the full Altium vs the reward of getting more people familiar with their tools...

A subscription model seems likely.

[nctnico]

IMHO Altium is way too complicated for hobbyist or small business use. I have been using schematics and layout software for over 25 years so I've seen my fair share of CAD software. I found Altium very hard and counter intuitive to use (I really needed the manual for every step of the process of making a PCB layout; usually I don't need a manual to get going with software). If you are working full time on schematic entry and PCB layout in a team then Altium definitely is worth considering. If not then tools like Kicad, Eagle, etc are much simpler to use and therefole take less time & effort to learn. Altium is never going to compete with tools which are easy to use.

[Circlotron]

Feeling pretty grumpy that i've spent a lot of money with Altium not so long ago and they are about to essentially give everyone else the same stuff for free.

Yeah.
I spent $320 on Easytrax back in November 1989.
Almost a week's wages.
Later it became freeware. 

[sakujo7]

If not then tools like Kicad, Eagle, etc are much simpler to use and therefole take less time & effort to learn. Altium is never going to compete with tools which are easy to use.

'Easy to use' is relative. I'd say it depends heavily on which tool(s) you use first, since that will determine which conventions you're used to.

I've had bad experiences with Kicad (crashes left, right and center) and Eagle (PCB/schematic not consistent, having to delete the PCB and start over...). Altium confused me for a day or two but otherwise didn't give me any trouble.

Naturally, your experiences will have been completely different.

[Circlotron]

I just hope it can import my 99SE projects and libraries.

[EEVblog]

What's going on with Maker Faire, why no updates?

Chris Gammell tweeted that he visited the stand, he got a demo of it, and he liked it!

[AlfBaz]

IMHO Altium is way too complicated for hobbyist or small business use. I have been using schematics and layout software for over 25 years so I've seen my fair share of CAD software. I found Altium very hard and counter intuitive to use (I really needed the manual for every step of the process of making a PCB layout; usually I don't need a manual to get going with software). If you are working full time on schematic entry and PCB layout in a team then Altium definitely is worth considering. If not then tools like Kicad, Eagle, etc are much simpler to use and therefole take less time & effort to learn. Altium is never going to compete with tools which are easy to use.

I find that logic a touch flawed. Todays components have smaller geometries, faster and more sensitive signals. You can only build so many LED blinkers before simple tools become more trouble than they're worth especially if there is a comparative offering that takes a little more learning because it's more advanced

[Precipice]

Even more so if there's community stuff you can rip off / start from.
If there's a trustable Arduino shield, a trustable RPi breakout, etc, then that's a huge head start for people just looking to add a few things on a board.

If these reference designs are actually done nicely, maybe we'll see fewer godawful unreadable schematics.

[DerekG]

Even more so if there's community stuff you can rip off / start from.

Sure, for hobbyists & hackers (which is where this new version is aimed).

As for professionals, they rarely use the Altium Forum (I did not use it once).

But I did use Altium Support (mind you they are pretty useless).

I had great satisfaction in supplying them a list with all the bugs I had found. I listed the date of first notification & the date a fix was received. Most bugs still remained after 2 years which is one of the reasons that I no longer upgrade to the latest version. It is a waste of my time installing it to find that only a few bugs have been fixed & that more bugs have been introduced into the new code.

Over the past 8 years, not a lot of useful features have been added to Altium. A few features, but not a lot.

[Rigby]

Eagle is the hobbyist standard today because it was free for small simple stuff a decade ago.

Eagle is not the hobbyist standard for any other reason.  Momentum was gained by Cadsoft because there weren't any other free, good tools.  When the "maker movement" started lots of blogs suggested eagle precisely because it was free, and often the blogger shared their design files.

The mechanism of sharing does not concern me, so long as sharing is possible.

Other communities use adf.ly to share their files, and I'd love to see that die.  If I don't have to pay to host stuff I wanna create, I'm onboard.

CircuitMaker does not need to cater to Eagle customers; that should not be the immediate goal.  CircuitMaker needs to attract people who would have otherwise chosen eagle tomorrow, first, THEN attract existing eagle freebie users.  This is what makes the new UI such a smart move.

I have eagle and I use it often.

I want to see a genuine competitor.  CM has a very good shot.

[m12lrpv]

With respect to the no local storage speculation... if you look at the header bar of their home page screen representation you can see the save path is local

http://circuitmaker.com/#make_things_happen

To me that implies that it's base isn't cloud only but you never know what will happen between now and release.

[tautech]

With respect to the no local storage speculation... if you look at the header bar of their home page screen representation you can see the save path is local

http://circuitmaker.com/#make_things_happen

To me that implies that it's base isn't cloud only but you never know what will happen between now and release.

c4757p covered this a few days ago:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/free-altium-is-coming/msg515831/#msg515831

But we hope a local storage option is offered. 

[m12lrpv]

With respect to the no local storage speculation... if you look at the header bar of their home page screen representation you can see the save path is local

http://circuitmaker.com/#make_things_happen

To me that implies that it's base isn't cloud only but you never know what will happen between now and release.

c4757p covered this a few days ago:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/free-altium-is-coming/msg515831/#msg515831

But we hope a local storage option is offered. 

Yeah it was covered but it's not sinking in 

[ehughes]

Sorry for the typos...  I am posting on my phone while in the passenger seat coming back from MakerFaire.

I got a full demo

1.).  A lot is in flux but the ability to grow into more layers and board area look great.   You can pay to upgrade individual pieces.   more board or more layers or both.   pricing was not finalized but the 4 layer option was 29 usd for a year in the demo.   The goal looked like to always be better/more flexible than competing products.  It wouldn't surprise me if Eagle needs to make some adjustments.

2.) The free size is 100x100mm.    calculated as true area.  So a 10 x 1000mm would fit

3.). Basic push shove was enabled.   Multiroute was enabled

4.).  Files are cached so you can work locally.   

5.).  Library....   real supplier links must be used.   No scrappy parts.  Your parts that must have real manufacturing, supplier data.     we discussed parts that are mechanical, etc.    They are considering how to do this while ensuring good quality parts.   No more generic '555s'.   Published parts will have backend data.

I did test with an obscure mechanical part. (surface mount standoff) Octopart found it!    Octopart is the primary search too for getting data


6.). Quite impressed with the commenting/collaboration tools.   I told them I want that in the pro version

7.). Has the new layer stack manager but no rigid flex.


8.). Schematic and library editing is exactly as what you would expect


9.) PCB is very usable.   IE way ahead of eagle but not quite all the features of of the pro

10.). Global editing tools are enabled


All in all,  with some more adjustments,   this looks to be a great package.   I saw a very receptive crowd at MakerFaire and there is nothing in the way of this being a useful tool for open/collaborative hardware.   Unless you are a  curmudgeon who just wants to find a reason to not like the software,  it will be a nice addition to the market.   I got the feeling that they were listening to get it right while still trying protect their primary product.

I plan on getting my community designs converted.   Right now there is not a path from Altium to Circuitmaker but I got the feeling it is not that difficult to make it happen.  :-)

[EEVblog]

I did test with an obscure mechanical part. (surface mount standoff) Octopart found it!    Octopart is the primary search too for getting data

Yes, now that the cat is out of the bag, Altium have teamed up very closely with Octopart to integrate it into the parts and library backend.

[sakujo7]

Sorry for the typos...  I am posting on my phone while in the passenger seat coming back from MakerFaire.

Not a problem. Sounds very promising!

[m12lrpv]

8.). Schematic and library editing is exactly as what you would expect

Personally I'm not sure what to expect with this Octopart announcement.

Library editing is a big one for me. I have a number of "combination" parts with dual footprints so I can vary the exact part used without remaking the boards and also totally custom footprints for hand made parts. As a hobbyist having flexibility in what I use based upon what I can get easily is very important.

[moemoe]

5.).  Library....   real supplier links must be used.   No scrappy parts.  Your parts that must have real manufacturing, supplier data.     we discussed parts that are mechanical, etc.    They are considering how to do this while ensuring good quality parts.   No more generic '555s'.   Published parts will have backend data.

Can you have multiple footprints/mechanical parts for the same logical element in your schematic? Is it possible to define multiple vendors for the same footprint?

[mikeselectricstuff]

8.). Schematic and library editing is exactly as what you would expect

but....

5.).  Library....   real supplier links must be used.   No scrappy parts.  Your parts that must have real manufacturing, supplier data.     we discussed parts that are

What exactly does that mean ?
Can you not create your own arbitary random parts at all , or just not submit them to the communal library?
Does that mean you can't create communal library parts for obsolete stuff like nixie tubes?
Are you forced to create schematic parts for every PCB part ?