More CAD packages first impressions...

[evading]

I really enjoyed watching the KiCAD and Diptrace first impressions videos and would like to see more of them.

- Cadsoft Eagle
- Designspark PCB

are two packages that does/could attract many hobbyists.

[Simon]

The problem with both those two is that they are propriety to companies that make them as spin-offs. so they could ditch them any day and really have more of their own interests at heart than the end user. I use KiCAD simply because it is free and I am on the developer mailing list (eves dropping not developing - if only). They are working hard on it and it's user feedback and the will of a large number of people that drive it.

That is just my opinion though.

[evading]

While I think that them being proprietary is a valid concern in some cases, I figure since Dave already test drove Diptrace, suggesting Eagle and Designspark PCB would not be crossing the line ;0)

[Edit]
And while I would REALLY like to use KiCAD or gEDA, just for the fact that they are open source. I find them kind of cumbersome. Now, that being said, I'm a complete newbie and have only made a handful of boards that I etched myself so my "feelings" about them might be wrong.

[Simon]

It's not the propriety that I have a problem with, but eagle is owned by one component wholesaler and design spark is owned by another. Neither company has made the software as their primary product but to draw people in to buy their components so I tend to not take them seriously.

[Thor-Arne]

I'm not sure that reviewing a cad package is such a good idea, most of these packages has different user interface and ways to handle the libraries.

A review will only be partially beneficial, like how much system resources it uses and the general speed of the package. If Dave tries to review one he's going to be biased by Altium Designer, and it won't be a fair review.

I've tried DesignSpark myself, and I dropped it due to the heavy system requirements. It was really sluggish on my laptop.
When I tried KiCad it was performing really smooth, so I settled with that.
KiCad has it's quirks, but it's just a matter of getting used to it.

[free_electron]

To review the packages you need first to be proficient at them. And there's problem number 1... most cad packages have a long learning curve and once you are used to one it becomes 'hard' to use something else.

Second problem is you actually need to know how to do board layout. Reviewing a cad package based on a 5component single sided board is nonsense. any cad package can make such a board. the power of the cad packages only comes to light when you start torturing them with things like realtime DRC , rubberbanding , push-n-shove and all the other tedious timeconsuming crap that humans generally hate but omputers just love to do.

And then you end up at problem number 3 : once you are used to a cad package that does a lot of the tedious crap any package not handling the same crap will be considered inferior and shot down in flames. so you invariably end up with a reviewer that is biased.

it is the same scenarios as someon who learns mechanical drawing and has to do it with crappy pens and chinese ink on vellum. a bit later he upgrades to rotring pens.. ah life is better now. then he gets a real drafting table. wow ! great, then he gets a simple vector drawing program and a pen plotter. now we are really jamming... and then he gets aPC and autocad. Wow. welcome to the future and a bit later he is introduced to a workstation running Solidworks coupled with a 3d printer ....

you guess what will happen at various stages ... by the time you are at solidworks anyone suggesting rotring pens as 'state-of-the art' will get them jammed up their nostrils , the vellum used to make papercuts in the webbing between their fingers and get the bottle of chinese ink poured over their head.

the same goes for CAD reviews...  you CAN do a meanunful review between Solidworks and Autodesk inventor. You can do a meaninful review between Mentor and Cadence and Altium.
You can NOT do a meaningful review between Kicad , eagle and Altium as you are fighting in a different ballgame. (Kicad being a contraption made by programmers that have no idea how a board workflow works, eagle being a long standing player in the PCB editor market but stuck at the pen-and-paper replacement with some tools thrown in and Altium doing stuff the kicad and eagle programmers can only dream off)

I would be a bad reviewer for eagle and kicad since i have  a certain level of expectations form a PCB tool. and both programs would fall grossly short of even the basic stuff i want. Nevertheless they may be viable programs base don other criteris ( needs to be low cost , doing only 5 component boards , thru hole , one board a year. etc )

in short : it is very hard to de meaningful reviews.

[djsb]

Maybe someday I'll do a comparison on Kicad and Altium designer. At the moment I only use Kicad on a daily basis and have used Altium about twice so far (even though I have a full perpetual license).
The one MAJOR advantage of Kicad is COST and portability (can be run from a USB stick). At some stage I'd like to get some Altium training but that training costs 2K and without regular practice the training is less effective.

David.

[Simon]

How do you run Kicad off a USB stick ? I'd "install" it in my drop box so anywhere I go I have the same version.

[AndyC_772]

I agree with free_electron, first impressions are pointless. You only know whether a CAD tool is good or bad if you first invest the time to really get to know it, and if your requirements are non-trivial.

I use Cadence OrCad PCB Designer. The learning curve was like a brick wall, and there's no way I'd recommend it for fun / hobby use, but it's an extremely capable professional tool. It meets my needs, and that's what made it worth buying - but it's certainly not suitable for all.

[djsb]

How do you run Kicad off a USB stick ? I'd "install" it in my drop box so anywhere I go I have the same version.

Easy. Just tell the setup to install all the files onto the USB stick and to run Kicad just double click on Kicad.exe. Simple as that.

David.

[Simon]

So it's like a portable app and does not use the registry or anything - cool

[evading]

I see many replies concerning reviews of the packages and I totally agree that that would be pointless if you don't really know every package you are reviewing. Thats why I would like to see "First Impression Videos".

[JoannaK]

I see many replies concerning reviews of the packages and I totally agree that that would be pointless if you don't really know every package you are reviewing. Thats why I would like to see "First Impression Videos".

Basic problem is.. Only those people who have no experience on any Cad package could give decent unbalanced first impression. Unfortunately, that kind of 'review' has no value to anyone trying to learn and use these packeges to make anything half-decent.

I agree with Free Electron fully here. We all have our favorites. Mine, due necessity, has been Pads (nowdays Mentor, just higher price) and I'd know things I'd could get done with it. And watching those 'entry level' programs that lack design critical features just make me twitch.

It's a quite similar feeling, that I'll get while seeing people trying to make near-real-time code with Arduino boards and keep using Floating point math with 8-bit microcontroller.

[Simon]

I used the dos version of OrCAD in school and managed to get a hooky copy of the windows version that I never really got very far with.

Comming to KiCAD I managed to learn faily well as I found it not much different from the old dos orcad in the work flow.

I know that in looking at other packages I was biased as I expected it to work like KiCAD for me.

[robrenz]

I agree with free_electrons post.  I have worked with solidworks for so long that intuitive interface now means "works just like solidworks"

[AndyC_772]

KiCad has obviously been written by an OrCad user, the interfaces are just too similar for it to be otherwise.

It's when you compare the tools back-to-back that you really see the value in the grown-up, professional product, though.