Free Altium is Coming

[george graves]

Thanks for reporting in, but you missed some HUGE parts....

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

Can I save locally?

Eeek.  So if Altium pulls the plug on the software in a few years, and does another 180 (as prone to do)....all the users are out of luck?  I'm going to invest my time in that for what?

Can you not create your own arbitary random parts at all , or just not submit them to the communal library?

Exactly.  And for the hobbiest, you often want to tweak the footprint a bit for home etching, or hand soldering vs reflow, or for a dozen of reason. 

Damn you Altium! You had one job!  Make the user interface intuitive, give us a board size as large or larger then free eagle, and if you want me to pay for a huge board, 4 or 6 layers, or flex PCB, then charge me. 

[Simon]

I just tried to find out about altium, just spoke to a UK rep. Err WTF ? the "low end" version is a cloud based one you use online with all of your projects published in the community, So totally unsuitable for professional use although apparently you can buy add ons. A full license is £5000, and there are no cut down versions say for pin count. Great, waste of time. Well done altium you missed the target very widely. Guess I'm stuck with Dip Trace and hoping they learn to code properly some time soon.

[tautech]

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 ?

That's worrisome. 
Did a PCB a while ago with these IGBT's mounted on the board, good luck finding a footprint for them. 
PDF attached 

[Rigby]

I just tried to find out about altium, just spoke to a UK rep. Err WTF ? the "low end" version is a cloud based one you use online with all of your projects published in the community, So totally unsuitable for professional use although apparently you can buy add ons. A full license is £5000, and there are no cut down versions say for pin count. Great, waste of time. Well done altium you missed the target very widely. Guess I'm stuck with Dip Trace and hoping they learn to code properly some time soon.

They're not aiming it at professionals AT ALL.  They're trying to stop hobbyists from getting so used to the steaming pile that is Eagle that they accept it and continue its use.

[Simon]

I just tried to find out about altium, just spoke to a UK rep. Err WTF ? the "low end" version is a cloud based one you use online with all of your projects published in the community, So totally unsuitable for professional use although apparently you can buy add ons. A full license is £5000, and there are no cut down versions say for pin count. Great, waste of time. Well done altium you missed the target very widely. Guess I'm stuck with Dip Trace and hoping they learn to code properly some time soon.

They're not aiming it at professionals AT ALL.  They're trying to stop hobbyists from getting so used to the steaming pile that is Eagle that they accept it and continue its use.

We are living in an interesting world and there are plenty of small start-ups, like me. We won't be paying 5K for software and we won't be putting our work online for all to see. So unless you suddenly get the urge to spend the cash your not going to use it. It would seem that altiums plan is to get hobbyists into their software and then once they are used to it they will need to pay a lot of money for or ask their employer to spend a lot of money. I asked the guy if they have different licensing levels like diptrace does on pin count and he said that a lot of people ask that but they don't. So clearly altium are not listening, because people are asking for it. i will have to stick with diptrace...... Clearly altium only fry big fish.

I've registered, I'll see what the paid addon's are but the impression he gave me was that keeping your stuff private is not an option so it looks like they have gone so wide of the border either side that either you will only ever use it as a hobby platform or at a very high level - missed the target by far.

[8086]

There's a lot of pages here now so I haven't seen if this has come up already, but why the hell wouldn't they bring out a version of the Altium Designer software without the FPGA nonsense, limited to say 4 or 6 layers, and maybe 30cm square size limit, and some advanced features missing, for something like £1000-£1500?

Surely there must be a fairly large amount of people who would go for that deal? I know a lot of small businesses would consider it a no brainer.

[Simon]

Yea, i'm one of them, but apparently altium have a long history of being thick and not changing any time soon. when diptrace does progress to a decent level altium will have no chance in the low end market

[bookaboo]

There's a lot of pages here now so I haven't seen if this has come up already, but why the hell wouldn't they bring out a version of the Altium Designer software without the FPGA nonsense, limited to say 4 or 6 layers, and maybe 30cm square size limit, and some advanced features missing, for something like £1000-£1500?

Surely there must be a fairly large amount of people who would go for that deal? I know a lot of small businesses would consider it a no brainer.

Sold!

[Precipice]

I'd get a couple of seats, and stop paying maintenance on two full seats here that are somewhat underutilised.
Oops.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I just tried to find out about altium, just spoke to a UK rep. Err WTF ? the "low end" version is a cloud based one you use online with all of your projects published in the community, So totally unsuitable for professional use although apparently you can buy add ons. A full license is £5000, and there are no cut down versions say for pin count. Great, waste of time. Well done altium you missed the target very widely. Guess I'm stuck with Dip Trace and hoping they learn to code properly some time soon.

They're not aiming it at professionals AT ALL.  They're trying to stop hobbyists from getting so used to the steaming pile that is Eagle that they accept it and continue its use.

There is not enough money in the hobbyist market  - the only way this can work is for it to be a stepping stone to more professional use via upgrades.
Hobbyists in general have more time than money, and are likely to switch to whatever tool does what they want for free.   

[Precipice]

Yea, i'm one of them, but apparently altium have a long history of being thick and not changing any time soon. when diptrace does progress to a decent level altium will have no chance in the low end market

Waah! This unreleased free software probably doesn't do what I want.

Steady on, chap. Why not wait to see what it actually is before you get all pissed off about it?
I'm not saying that Altium won't do something daft, but seriously?

I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see the buy-in price for full Altium to drop a bit, though, as an enticement, perhaps with it being fully rental, and no 'let it stay frozen and unmaintained' option?

Interesting times.

[Simon]

Waah! This unreleased free software probably doesn't do what I want.

Steady on, chap. Why not wait to see what it actually is before you get all pissed off about it?
I'm not saying that Altium won't do something daft, but seriously?

I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see the buy-in price for full Altium to drop a bit, though, as an enticement, perhaps with it being fully rental, and no 'let it stay frozen and unmaintained' option?

Interesting times.

The person i spoke to was pretty clear that if i wanted to keep private business IP this was not the solution for me. He said that yes there are addon's but as far as he knew none will allow keeping designs private. So it's a total no show and not even useful for small businesses. He was clear that it's not for business by hobby projects. My impression is that they are trying to create the electronics version of facebook. No thank you!

[jmag999]

I spoke with a rep at Maker Faire who told me that private designs would be an add-on but that they were not considering local file storage at this time.

[timb]

Waah! This unreleased free software probably doesn't do what I want.

Steady on, chap. Why not wait to see what it actually is before you get all pissed off about it?
I'm not saying that Altium won't do something daft, but seriously?

I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see the buy-in price for full Altium to drop a bit, though, as an enticement, perhaps with it being fully rental, and no 'let it stay frozen and unmaintained' option?

Interesting times.

The person i spoke to was pretty clear that if i wanted to keep private business IP this was not the solution for me. He said that yes there are addon's but as far as he knew none will allow keeping designs private. So it's a total no show and not even useful for small businesses. He was clear that it's not for business by hobby projects. My impression is that they are trying to create the electronics version of facebook. No thank you!

Sounds like he didn't really know what he was on about.

The cloud saving isn't even set in stone FFS!

Didn't Dave even mention a paid vs public suppository, Upverter style?

There be a bunch of Chicken Littles up in 'dis thread.


Sent from my Smartphone

[Rigby]

I spoke with a rep at Maker Faire who told me that private designs would be an add-on but that they were not considering local file storage at this time.

Yeah, I think that was mentioned before.

What folks don't seem to be understanding (in my naive view, perhaps) is that we aren't the target market for this tool.  We're so sure that WE wouldn't use it, but we can't speak for folks that are just starting out today.  Some of us are just starting out and will gladly evaluate this tool and don't care about local file saving.

[Simon]

if your a business you have to be a little bit careful. I can't go to my boss and say that I'm going to start using a tool that will store stuff online where it can get hacked or that we spend thousands on software that we use to design 2 prototypes a year with. If altium want to ease people into using their software this is not the way to do it for existing businesses and the rep (who is a reseller so maybe not up to date) said that many people ask if there is a pin count limited version so clearly people are asking for one thing which other companies offer but they are not providing it. If it's an in or out for 5K I'm out. Diptrace got the right idea but their software is um... work in progress.

[Precipice]

If you're doing two designs a year, I'd say you may be better off subbing it out, than keeping on relearning tools and paying subscriptions...
Someone who bangs their heads against the tools all day, every day is going to be so much quicker. You'd still do the tricky bit (the actual designing of what you want to achieve - architecture, main component selection) in house, but the handle-turning of getting a schematic and PCB out the door - are you sure you want to dedicate that much time and effort?
Just a thought...

[Simon]

If you're doing two designs a year, I'd say you may be better off subbing it out, than keeping on relearning tools and paying subscriptions...
Someone who bangs their heads against the tools all day, every day is going to be so much quicker. You'd still do the tricky bit (the actual designing of what you want to achieve - architecture, main component selection) in house, but the handle-turning of getting a schematic and PCB out the door - are you sure you want to dedicate that much time and effort?
Just a thought...

It's part of research and development, not something we want to hand over to a sub contractor. Yes we do use them but when your making it up as you go along you have to work in house or bring in very expensive consultants. I can fix problems and make PCB's to the latest spec based on what we just learnt more quickly than a subcontractor finding someone free to do the work for us and then the tedious job of communicating what we want. Subcontractors are not available "on tap" they have other customers too.

Personally speaking I'm a one man band designer so far designing a few products to present to people and hope they are interested, so of course I'm not subbing that out and neither is paying 5K for software an option. My impression is that altium licenses are locked to your machine as the rep was keen to point out that with their freeware version I can log in from anywhere. I just told him that with diptrace I can use any computer i please with one license providing I don't try to run two at once. He had nothing to say to that. I can take my laptop away with me and carry on working, I take my dads to see my sister and when i get bored pull out the laptop and get working, bet altium is not so flexible.

[baljemmett]

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.

So does that mean your 'who is Altium buying?' musing was an elaborate bluff, and you had a strong suspicion as to a most-likely answer all along? 

[Edit to correct typo - 'our' instead of 'your' - oops!]

[Precipice]

It's part of research and development, not something we want to hand over to a sub contractor.

That's most of my jobs!

And yes, you can use proper Altium on multiple machines, but not simultaneously. Laptop and desktop, just works absolutely fine. You need to remember to check out a license if you want to work off-net for a while, but as licensing schemes go, it's painless. It does a bit of authentication and watermarking of some sort when you add a new machine, but meh, their code, their rules.
If you forget to shut down your desktop session before trying to use a laptop, you can just remotely yoink the license away.

[Simon]

sounds similar to the floating license we use at work for Solid Edge (3D CAD) but that costs more than a regular license.

[EEVblog]

So does that mean our 'who is Altium buying?' musing was an elaborate bluff, and you had a strong suspicion as to a most-likely answer all along? 

Octopart is one of many possible companies.
Would make sense, but so so do others as well, so I have no idea, and they won't tell me of course.
And I doubt they need all that money to to buy Octopart, that would be foolish I suspect, but Altium are the masters of foolish.

[ehughes]

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 ?

Sorry for the ambiguity.  Typing on a phone at midnight is difficult for my brain.


So,  What I meant by "Schematic are Libraries are what you expect" is that the core editor, dialogs, etc are exactly as they are in Altium.

The did exactly what I thought they would do.    They used the Object libraries already developed and just create a new shell around them.  I had some minor objections to a few things but it was nicely done.


As for the details on the libraries and how multiple footprints map schematic parts,    etc.   Here is what I took away:

1.)   All of this is still under consideration....
2.)   When you create a part,  you are creating an entity that is keyed to an specific manufacturer part number.    (The correct way IMHO).    So,  you do not a create a 555 timer.  You create a TLC555CDR with all the metadeta.

I brought up all the other use cases and they are going to talk about how to work in the other use cases while keeping the flow simple.

Here is the general problem.  How do you have a community library that ensures consistent quality, etc?      I suggested some sort of system that filter out the good parts from the bad via some sort of icon/coloring, etc.

3dcontentcentral has a parts rating system but there is often multiple copies of the same part.

Lastly,    what they were showing off was the start of a community tool for open designs.    If you are looking for a tool to make proprietary designs for profit that are not open,  then this first tool is not for you at this point.

The target audience were those who want to make more open hardware.

My other thought that if you are small business who needs to get things private,  you need to come up with a workable business plan that can buy a real tool.    Expecting a free tool for your business without having any restrictions is not reasonable.

Now,  it looks to me that they are planning on options for closed design but right now it is looking like a community product to start with.

For a price tag of zero it is a good start.     There are a bunch of things to work out but I am personally pleased that there is some level engagement with the users.

[Precipice]

2.)   When you create a part,  you are creating an entity that is keyed to an specific manufacturer part number.    (The correct way iMHO).    So,  you do not a create a 555 timer.  You create a TLC555CDR with all the metadeta.

All well and good, but I also need to be able to build a part based on 'that funky LCD I ripped out of a clock 4 years ago'. (or scored off an anonymous ebay supplier, or that sort of thing. Stuff that Octopart are never going to know or care about in a million years.

but yeah, still sounds promising.

[Rigby]

if your a business you have to be a little bit careful. I can't go to my boss and say that I'm going to start using a tool that will store stuff online where it can get hacked or that we spend thousands on software that we use to design 2 prototypes a year with. If altium want to ease people into using their software this is not the way to do it for existing businesses and the rep (who is a reseller so maybe not up to date) said that many people ask if there is a pin count limited version so clearly people are asking for one thing which other companies offer but they are not providing it. If it's an in or out for 5K I'm out. Diptrace got the right idea but their software is um... work in progress.

Right, cloud storage for a business is not always a good idea and not always a bad idea; it depends on the cloud service, it depends on what you're putting in there, and it depends on .. a lot of things, actually.

I don't think this tool is aimed at the business user.  Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong about that.  I'm pretty sure this is aimed at hobbyists who occasionally need to increase the capabilities of the program for a specific project here or there.