PCB Design Software

[davidsrsb]

Even the high end PCB software has plenty of problems, hving been badly bitten by Visula, Mentor and Orcad over the years.
We still use the old DOS/Win95 Protel in the office as we are comfortable with its bugs.

Kicad looks very promising and the GNU PCB software which has an autorouter, something missing from most low cost tools, although a good layout technician can do a much better job than any autorouted board that I have ever seen.

[Mikie]

I've also tried many different PCB packages, with the goal of finding one that:

1. Has enough common DIY components both in schematic and PCB part.
2. Has a decent autorouter to do the bulk of the work, I can finish up by hand.
3. Has an integrated Spice simulator.
4. Is easy to use "out of the box" (usable libraries etc.).

So far, the top list has been 3. Eagle, 2. Electronic Workbench, 1. CircuitMaker.

Unfortunately, CircuitMaker has been abandonware since 2001, Electronic Workbench changed into high-capability/high-price package called Multisim/Ultiboard.

I greatly prefer CircuitMaker to Eagle for some reason. It is very easy to use, but it does have a few quirks, ie. it's very complicated to add a new Spice models, the simulation doesn't look right (or it could be the models I've added?), and the autorouter has a nasty habit of not doing it quite right. It leaves double-back traces even though the option to remove them is ticked, and is determined to connect the traces the way they are drawn in the schematic, from nearest to furthest. It could be that it is optimized for a multi-layer boards, though...

For example, components A B C D are connected in that order in schematic, but on the board they are placed as A D B C. The thing is determined to place a track from A to B to C to D no matter what, creating a mess in the process.

Even with all these faults, it is still very usable for DIY. and it hasn't left me with a wrongly-connected board yet. Both symbols and PCB footprints are very easy to add, runs on XP SP2 without a problem, and it isn't very resource-hungry at all (it is 2001 vintage, you know).

http://www.olimex.com/pcb/dtools.html

Anything that costs thousands is really an overkill for DIY. WHo here needs a PCB software that has 120,000 parts, can do a 36-layer board, and a 400-page schematic? A fellow that does all the projects for an Australian electronics magazine still uses Protel Easytrax/Autotrax and swears by it.

[mr coffee]

Since folks here are interested in good PCB layout tools at low cost, let me put in my 2 cents for Protel AutoTrax (the DOS version that used to sell for hundreds of bucks but is now freeware from the Altium site).

And if you use it and keep your Windows XP up to date, you will find that MS broke the DOS emulator with one of their security fixes. Hmmm...

But there is a nice program to the rescue, DOSbox, a freeware written by some DOS games afficionados, that is actually faster than the old MS emulator.

I never use autorouting, so I don't have an opinion about that aspect of AutoTrax.

If you run W98 you won't need to make any changes - AutoTrax runs great.

And Airborne electronics has released a bunch of - also free - video drivers to run on higher resolutions screens. And a .pcx output for the printer-plotter module that allows you to print in 1200dpi or whatever from any graphics program.

Of course if you're intimidated by the c: prompt, you'll have a bit of a learning curve. But it has pro gerber outputs, NC drill files, does multilayer, etc.

More oriented to through-hole designs than SMT, though.

[AndrewT]

Hi Mr C,
thanks for the report.

Any more techy info you think we might need?

[Tolik]

I`m using Altium Designer 6 - Nice stuff to simulate cirquits, and create boards. All in 1...

[mr coffee]

Hi Andrew,

I've been running Autotrax with DOSbox regularly and it behaves well. You will probably want to use different components from the standard libraries but they are a cinch to make. It will do SMT layout but it's not it's forte.

Run DOSbox with speed set about 3500. I you have other questions, pm me.

[Conrad Hoffman]

FWIW, for many years I've used SuperCAD SuperPCB from Mental Automation. They have their bugs, but get the job done for a reasonable price. They sell an autorouter, but I don't need that for audio stuff. I have one requirement for a PCB program- it has to be able to generate a netlist from the schematic, and a netlist from the layout, and compare them for errors. Any high end program does this, but not all the hobbyist programs.

For mechanical work, if you don't need a 3D program, nothing can beat VisualCADD. If some PCB program designer would look at the VC interface (and lack of bugs) and make a PCB program that worked half as well, they'd own the market.