I've been using designspark exclusively for the last couple of years. You do not need to layout a schematic to design a PCB and you can easily edit and create your own components...
Contrary to the norm I never make schematics prior to making PCBs.
I am not getting any spam from them, no more than say TI or anyone else. If you are so worried about spam then just get/use another gmail address. As it is, I bought some comps from RS comps before so they are already spamming me to begin with
From what I can tell I'd sooner use designspark over eagle or diptrace. It is not orcad or better more expensive tools. Perfect for DIY audio work.
Agree 100% nonsense to be drawing up a pcb with out sync to a schematic.
I hope you are not using diptrace to design these sophisticated designs
I doubt that you actually have used designspark enough to cast an opinion. sure i could find all kinds of things to start to bash design spark, but for what it does and its cost, it is a fine tool for diy.This thread is to help folks make use of this tool to design pcbs from a schematic.
Damn I wish I had something as nice as designspark when I was a kid in college and a teacher that could explain its use and the pcb design/fab process.
I have learnt to use designspark based on the elektor articles and just pushing the buttons. It has no docs, only some tutorials, that I am aware of, and in ~ two days I can make pcbs. I think it is great. It took me much longer to learn orcad, valid/cadence allegro, mentor boardstation. They had to fly some of us to san jose to learn mentor bs. those days we did not have gerber checkers, we had to get a set of check photo-plots and go over them on a light table. ever do check plots on a 12 layer pcb
A unused pin is a one pin net, in other words it is not in the netlist, so the s/w should not allow you to or at least warn you that you are routing a one pin net! Actually some pins on some ics are not to be connected to in any way. Doing so should be flagged as a design rule violation. If you want to route a one pin net, then add it your net list and set up a routing rule for it.
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I haven't used DesignSpark at all. The only opinion I have cast about it is them telling everyone flat out they offer the tool for free with the condition of giving them an email address to spam you with.
I use DipTrace for everything now but am open to try other software. I know you tried Diptrace briefly and have been slagging it non stop ever since, but I think your biggest complaint is a misunderstanding on your part.
When I was referring to an unused pin, I meant disabling an unused op amp or input. Having the schematic verification to remind me to do this is a great help.
I plan to try DesignSpark out this weekend and see it I like it. I'm curious how much of a pain it is to edit your parts for it. I saw some complaints about lacking libraries in another thread. I prefer to make my own libraries. DipTrace is pretty rough for editing silkscreen. Is DesignSpark any easier?
I use DipTrace for everything now but am open to try other software. I know you tried Diptrace briefly and have been slagging it non stop ever since, but I think your biggest complaint is a misunderstanding on your part.
When I was referring to an unused pin, I meant disabling an unused op amp or input. Having the schematic verification to remind me to do this is a great help.
I plan to try DesignSpark out this weekend and see it I like it. I'm curious how much of a pain it is to edit your parts for it. I saw some complaints about lacking libraries in another thread. I prefer to make my own libraries. DipTrace is pretty rough for editing silkscreen. Is DesignSpark any easier?
Well i think we can all say that diptrace or designspark are not high end ecad tools. But if they do the job then great.I hope you are not using diptrace to design these sophisticated designs
Like i said, if the pin is not in the nets list then the router should not be able to route from the pin in the first place, as there is no guide in the rats nest. The layout is not the place to be adding nets to the nets list, that is what the schematic is for.
well slagging is not what I meant to be doing, just trying to defend designspark really. Seems that all I have been doing so far in this thread, is defending it. I voice an opinion that diptrace/eagle are not my preferences because of ease of use, costs, limits based on costs, no modelsource library support etc. All these things factor into what one cast as an opinion or a preference. I don't know is stating a preference = slagging
Basically this thread is to help people to use designspark, share libraries, designs and hopefully convince the diy community to standardize on this tool which is free to use with very little limits. If there is another tool out there that offers what design spark has then I am okay to evaluate that as well, but design spark is the only one out their for free and has no pin/pcb size limits.
Why bother if diptrace meets your requirements? Fine with me if you want to continue to use diptrace, so I suggest that you start a thread on that s/w pkg and we continue to talk about design spark in this thread.
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"I hope you are not using diptrace to design these sophisticated designs "
This could easily be taken as slagging some software.
"Like i said, if the pin is not in the nets list then the router should not be able to route from the pin in the first place, as there is no guide in the rats nest. The layout is not the place to be adding nets to the nets list, that is what the schematic is for."
There wasn't any argument here. A lot of the defending of the product you have been doing is really unnecessary. No need to argue with someone who is in complete agreement (Jack Layton comes to mind here).
"Contrary to the norm I never make schematics prior to making PCBs."
"Agree 100% nonsense to be drawing up a pcb with out sync to a schematic."
??? which one is it?
Support is actually quite good for DipTrace and there are lots of libraries avalable through their forums, but I learned many years ago not to trust anything posted somewhere on the internet without close scrutiny. This is why I was wondering about editing your own libraries in DesignSpark. Have you had any experience with this yet?
As I stated, I'm open to trying other software. DipTrace works for me presently, but if this works better I'll use it.
"This could easily be taken as slagging some software.
"Like i said, if the pin is not in the nets list then the router should not be able to route from the pin in the first place, as there is no guide in the rats nest. The layout is not the place to be adding nets to the nets list, that is what the schematic is for."
There wasn't any argument here. A lot of the defending of the product you have been doing is really unnecessary. No need to argue with someone who is in complete agreement (Jack Layton comes to mind here).
"Contrary to the norm I never make schematics prior to making PCBs."
"Agree 100% nonsense to be drawing up a pcb with out sync to a schematic."
??? which one is it?
Support is actually quite good for DipTrace and there are lots of libraries avalable through their forums, but I learned many years ago not to trust anything posted somewhere on the internet without close scrutiny. This is why I was wondering about editing your own libraries in DesignSpark. Have you had any experience with this yet?
As I stated, I'm open to trying other software. DipTrace works for me presently, but if this works better I'll use it.
have to look up slagging in the dictionary to be sure."I hope you are not using diptrace to design these sophisticated designs
I am glad i wrote sophisticated and not professional. I am pretty sure diptrace can be used in a professional setting. designspark I ? if it can be under its costing model. But diptrace, (and eagle,dspark) I can pretty confidently say, they are not ecad tools for use in sophisticated designs. I guess it comes down to what do you need from the ecad tool to make your design work.
oops should read what I write, thx for correcting me
should read,
"Contrary to the norm, I never make pcbs prior to making schematics".
Got the carriage in front of the horse on that one
Even if it is a pcb with a bunch of footprints(pads)/protoboard and no connections.
never tried designspark support yet, but good support is important/imperative in a professional setting, that is why you pay $. I doubt that dspark support is better than diptrace, since there is no cost model. I did go to the forum and seen that someone is there to answer ?
The costing/support models vary depending on the vendor. I used to admin cadence/mentor/synopsys at one time. you never owned the s/w, you rented it. If there was a bug, it may or may not be fixed in your installed rev. You may get a patch, but if the fix was in the next rev and you did not have support = sol
I have done a little work with dspark libs. reviewed a few of the sample designs.
without modelsource, dspark libs need a lot of work. Even with modelsource, I see that many symbols are auto generated, so they need work too.
What is important in any libs are there ability to drive the the backend tools, i.e. boms. I want to generate a bom, so it can be easy to load into distributors bom import tools without a lot of massaging. See my notes that I posted on the libs.
dspark has schematic comps, that reference sch & layout symbols.
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BOMs have never been a priority for me. I rarely order single parts for cost issues so most parts I need are already in my inventory. I look for ease of layout and any help for spotting stupid mistakes. I need to make my own odd connection footprints regularly though. It sounds like models in this software might be more than just a footprint and schematic symbol.
Sure that is your design process so as long as the tool meets it, check that box off in the requirements. I am not here to critique your design process
And your are expecting the ecad tool to find your stupid mistakes = funny. Asking the schematic editor to find your design mistakes. That is what simulation is for.
Pcb mistakes, well if you have a netlist that gets rid of the first mistake, wiring up to the wrong nets/pins. pcb layout is never going to find your translations from a cad drawing into a footprint generation as long as it does not result in a drc error. I still today, print out the component layers and place a sample of comps just to be sure i did not do anything stupid.
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The small test pcb that i did managed to draw up using modelsource comps, pulled up a 3D rendering view of the design and I did not do anything special, it was all done by default.
If you are reading Neil's articles in elektor, he is now moved onto mechcad and reading in step models from vendors and doing the up the mech design to determine the key mech comps for the layout. This is exactly how we used to design, ME provided the EE the pcb outline and key comp x,y locations for parts like connectors, mounting holes, etc for the layout cycle. Remember having to drill into more than one's ME head, use the corner of the pcb as your orientation/reference point for all dimensioned points. Dimension to a common point like pin "1", not a mounting hole for gods sake. ME folks like to continue to change the ref points, so one references the other = a bloody mess to sort out.
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You do not get spammed by design spark. You receive a small number of emails that are actually relevant about new and updated DS products.
IMOP every CAD product is quirky and they all have there adherents and haters, it's just like religions!! I have used design spark successfully for a few years and for hobbyists it's great its free
I had to laugh at someone saying if you paid for software it would be bug free, that really is BS I have used CAD software costing thousands a seat and its full of bugs.
I had to laugh at someone saying if you paid for software it would be bug free, that really is BS I have used CAD software costing thousands a seat and its full of bugs.
Are you allowed to practice more than one religion? I guess so, since they probably do not talk to each other.
Do you have any libraries to share our thread?
I am starting to make templates to build off of, if I plan on putting much time into this tool. It seems msource is good at tying a comp to a sch and pcb symbol, add some important props like mfr and mfr-pn. I loaded a resistor and it came through without a value property which is wrong. So modelsource libs are totally inconsistant based on my little experience.
What is cool, I found out is that for designs, even though you do not have the source library, you are able to edit which means you, write out the symbols/comps from the schematic or layout into a selected library for editiing and saving.
One test of a good ecad pkg is to try to get it out of sync between sch and layout. Fun to see what happens or what it takes to recover. Sometimes it can get messy, need to get to the backups or loose work.
The trouble with libraries is the massive amount of components on the market.
There are literally millions of connectors.
For someone to sit and put them all in a library by hand would take many man years.
So I just make my own components as I need them.
I always print them out and match them agains the real component to make sure it is an exact fit.
There are literally millions of connectors.
For someone to sit and put them all in a library by hand would take many man years.
So I just make my own components as I need them.
I always print them out and match them agains the real component to make sure it is an exact fit.
This. And it isn't just with connectors. I usually spend a couple of minutes using model source to see if I can find what I'm after, but more often than not I make all my own footprints.
Well after using this tool for a short bit I see lots of deficiencies. Not sure if I am doing anything wrong but i see padstacks or better said lack of padstack info is interesting. SolderMask(SM) to pad spacing offsetting is global and only can be done when you generate the gerber. So much for doing a solder-masked defined via or pad = major deficiency.
In building pcb footprints, I noticed that by default their is no placement outline layer (or courtyard), that is usually used as a drc placement violation boundary. So i determined that without a placement boundary, it is using the silkscreen for a guide to placement violations = oh boy another major deficiency. So I take it that one is to use the doc layer as a means to get a placement boundary and use your eye as the drc violation checker = eek
In building pcb footprints, I noticed that by default their is no placement outline layer (or courtyard), that is usually used as a drc placement violation boundary. So i determined that without a placement boundary, it is using the silkscreen for a guide to placement violations = oh boy another major deficiency. So I take it that one is to use the doc layer as a means to get a placement boundary and use your eye as the drc violation checker = eek
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