25 replies to this topic

[JerseyTechGuy]

Since I took a break from Electrical Engineering in 1997 to pursue other career aspirations, I am sure Electronic CAD and Board Manufacturers have changed a lot. As I begin the next phase of my project, building a Bill of Material, then laying out the board (shield) and sensor boards... I figured it was time to get some recommendations from the members as far as which CAD software to go with. Not looking to spend an arm and a leg on it. Also, are there an board manufacturers that people have used that are particularly good and maybe support small quantity runs? NOTE: I have both a MAC and a PC so the CAD's OS is not a deal breaker. I also like the look of the black masked Netduino boards. This would be a preference when it comes to the board maker. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[carb]

Dave,

There is a good discussion on PCB manufacturers and Free CAD software in the thread for Hanzibal USB Audio Device, I think that he used BatchPC and Eagle. Several others are mentioned starting on the first page of the thread under projects.

BatchPC sounded like the cheapest, but not necessarily the fastest to deliver.

Cad software included Eagle and Fritzing, both are free and have tutorials to get you started on wiring diagram and PC board layout with components, traces, soldering masks, drill locations and screen print etc.

I am sure Hanzibal can provide details.

Good luck,

Chuck

[Nevyn]

Cad software included Eagle and Fritzing, both are free and have tutorials to get you started on wiring diagram and PC board layout with components, traces, soldering masks, drill locations and screen print etc.

Eagle is only free if you are non-commercial.

I'm currently trying DesignSpark as that is free. Will be interesting to see how it fairs as I'm going to have a go a making a board in the next few weeks/months.

Regards,
Mark

[Magpie]

I like Kicad, I had no success with Eagle, though many people do. No board size or any other limitations. No licensing hoops or serial numbers. You can import all the eagle libraries with a python script. Open source. Whatever you choose I would use source control on your projects and libraries( footprint and schematic) as the occasional wrong button clicked can have many consequences, and most of the files are text based so you can do version comparisons to see what changes you have made. I use subversion.

[JerseyTechGuy]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations thus far. I'll take a look at them all. The only reason I may stay away from Eagle right now is that it will be commercial use since I am making a product to sell and that gets expensive. I used to use ORCAD back in the day and I see this is still made in some form. Back then I was using it on windows 95.

[JerseyTechGuy]

I like Kicad, I had no success with Eagle, though many people do.
No board size or any other limitations.
No licensing hoops or serial numbers.
You can import all the eagle libraries with a python script.
Open source.
Whatever you choose I would use source control on your projects and libraries( footprint and schematic) as the occasional wrong button clicked can have many consequences, and most of the files are text based so you can do version comparisons to see what changes you have made.
I use subversion.

Have you stumbled upon any scripts to import eagle schematics? I searched Google a bit and didn't find anything.

[Magpie]

I have a 13Meg of Eagle converted libraries, I think they are from Sparkfun.
Occasionally I get a error from the converted libraries, but It gives a line number and all you need to do is delete the offending part of the library.
Remember there are two types of Library, Schematic components (libs) and footprints(mods).
There is a step in KIcad where you have to manually map your components to your footprints, I like the way they do it but others don't.


This link should have most of what you need
Kicad links

There is also a Yahoo groups Kicad usergroup if you need to ask questions, or try

EEVblog a good electronics resource, they have a small kicad section in their forum.

[Dan Morphis]

Since I took a break from Electrical Engineering in 1997 to pursue other career aspirations, I am sure Electronic CAD and Board Manufacturers have changed a lot.

As I begin the next phase of my project, building a Bill of Material, then laying out the board (shield) and sensor boards... I figured it was time to get some recommendations from the members as far as which CAD software to go with. Not looking to spend an arm and a leg on it. Also, are there an board manufacturers that people have used that are particularly good and maybe support small quantity runs?

NOTE: I have both a MAC and a PC so the CAD's OS is not a deal breaker. I also like the look of the black masked Netduino boards. This would be a preference when it comes to the board maker.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Depending on how big your board is, if you need cheap proto boards, itead studios can do 10 5cm*5cm two layer board for $9.90.

-dan

[Dan Morphis]

Have you stumbled upon any scripts to import eagle schematics? I searched Google a bit and didn't find anything.

I don't know how KiCAD does it, but other programs I've experimented with require you to open your schematic and board in EagleCAD, then run a ulp (user language program) they have written to export the data into their pre-defined interchange format.

-dan

[JerseyTechGuy]

Depending on how big your board is, if you need cheap proto boards, itead studios can do 10 5cm*5cm two layer board for $9.90.

-dan

These are full size Shields and are not proto shields. It's a fully functioning shield to support LCD, Buttons and an array of sensors.

[hanzibal]

The free version of Eagle also got a 100 by 80 mm size limit. I'm about to try out MakePCB (manufacturer) which is both reasonably cheap and quick and they can do black mask with gold pads which looks really good. A good thing with Eagle is that it's widely used, support is rich, and that most manufacturer's provide Eagle .dru files (design rules) which you can use to verify the feasibility of your design before uploading for manufacture.

[JerseyTechGuy]

Well I've been spending some time evaluating the recommended CAD systems. While Eagle is widely used, I found it a little bulky in some aspects. I tried Kicad and found it pretty much unusable. It's probably good for very basic stuff, but found it to be lacking functionality. I then moved on to DesignSpark. So far I've found DesignSpark nice to use and fairly feature rich. I like the build in 3D rendering which easily helps look at the board. I also found that there are ported SparkFun and other libraries which made it easy to hit the ground running.

Here is one of the first renderings of one of Pandora's Box's Sensor Boards. So far I am playing around with grouping them by communication protocol, so I designed an I2C board that houses the RTC, Barometric Pressure Sensor and Magnetometer. All in all, after learning the program and getting the libraries installed it probably took a couple hours to lay it all out.

I still need to decide exactly how I am going to lay it all out as there will be a shield and probably 2 sensor boards. I may keep the RTC and the Lipo Charging / Fuel Gauge Circuitry on the Shield to keep it common for future ScareTronix products.

Thanks again everyone for the advice and feedback.

[hanzibal]

Looks good. 3D rendering is really nice feature.

[nakchak]

One of the things i really like about design spark is how simple the component editor is to use to make custom components. The biggest draw back i have is that it seems quite easy to corrupt libraries which results in the program crashing. Plus the eagle import features is really nifty. FYI design spark shares the same core as Pulsonix and EasyPC which is a much more pro orientated bit of software but obv comes with a price. I personally also find the schematic editor a 1000 times more intuitive to use than eagles and some of the disabled by default settings like auto pan etc are invaluable. And as mentioned before the lack of board size, layer and pad restrictions makes it a no brainier to use as long as you can get over its idiosyncrasies. Speaking from experience the gerbers it produces are also 100% (as long as your DRC is set up correctly) and have managed to avoid the cost of my local PCB fab converting it to altium format, to generate gerbers at their end. All in all i heartily recommend Design Spark, i wonder if it would be worth porting the various ND schematics and PCB's to its format, as that would certainly lower the barrier to more highly integrated designs using the open ND hardware.

[JerseyTechGuy]

I spent the day today looking at board manufacturers and trying some upload services to see how they worked and if the gerber files are correct. I designed the same board in both Eagle and DesignSpark and tried to export to Gerber from both. The one I found to be the absolute worst was SparkFun's BatchPCB. Every time you try to upload you get some bull$hit generic error with your Gerber files. Read their forums and followed guidance on other forums and no go. Needless to say they will not get my business. Still evaluating whom I want to use for prototypes and who to use for production because I definitely want black mask for production boards. PS: After playing with Eagle yet again today, I hate it even more. Not very user friendly in my opinion.

[hanzibal]

As my USB audio board is my first ever PCB, I've never used any at all cad software before so Eagle is my first and only experience. I agree Eagle's GUI is kind of awkward and took me a little getting used to but after that it has worked quite well for me. Generating Gerber files and have them pass the MakePCB DRC bot was totally effortless. In wonder of why you seem to have problems with it, did you use the .DRU file available from MakePCB / Sparkfun and did you set trace width and clearance accordingly?

[JerseyTechGuy]

1337208635[/url]' post='29301']
As my USB audio board is my first ever PCB, I've never used any at all cad software before so Eagle is my first and only experience.

I agree Eagle's GUI is kind of awkward and took me a little getting used to but after that it has worked quite well for me. Generating Gerber files and have them pass the MakePCB DRC bot was totally effortless.

In wonder of why you seem to have problems with it, did you use the .DRU file available from MakePCB / Sparkfun and did you set trace width and clearance accordingly?

Yep, used their .DRU file and set everything. For whatever reason it just won't take the Gerber files and gives some generic error in the Gerber files. Might try a small test board just to try and figure out the issues,

[hanzibal]

You probably already know this, but I followed a step by step on hackaday on howto generate the gerber files and exactly which ones to include in the zip to upload.

[JerseyTechGuy]

You probably already know this, but I followed a step by step on hackaday on howto generate the gerber files and exactly which ones to include in the zip to upload.

Found the same one Googling around for guidance. I'll probably try another board from scratch tomorrow and see what happens.

[carb]

I purchased Eagle Light, but I am finding it extremely difficult to use. Nothing is intuitive to use. The board size is limited to 3.2" x 3.9" (80mm x 100mm), only 2 layers boards.

The only thing I have found that I liked is the Auto Router.

Do any of the other programs mentioned in this thread have an auto route feature?

Chuck