Professional design software for tube amplifiers needed!

[Metalgarri]

Hi all,

I am desperately looking for a professional (or professional level) to design a full tube guitar amp chassis, including the board inside it. I am interested only in the layout, not simulations.
Something where I can draw the schematic and then design the full amp from it.

I already tried DIY Layout Creator, which is ok for start, but I am looking for something more.

Thank you very much for any suggestion!🙂

Cheers,
Carmine

 

[nigelwright7557]

A lot of PCBCAD packages will have tubes in their libraries.
However, buying a PCBCAD package doesn't make you an expert at laying out pcb's.
Great care has to be taken with star grounding and keeping things away from each other that could interfere.

 

[rayma]

I can draw the schematic and then design the full amp from it.

Kicad is very popular. Most pcb software either has tube footprints,
or users that make them available.
KiCad EDA

 

[Metalgarri]

A lot of PCBCAD packages will have tubes in their libraries.
However, buying a PCBCAD package doesn't make you an expert at laying out pcb's.
Great care has to be taken with star grounding and keeping things away from each other that could interfere.

Totally agree with you!

I've used Eagle, Altium designer and the mentor graphic one for PCB layout for many years, and also Cadence for analog IC design, and it's very true that the tool does not make the designer 😛

Eagle or others can be used to layout a pcb in a "turret style" kind of board, but it is very unpractical if you want to design the full chassis including the board inside it.
I find it not very flexible when you have to design also the routing to pots or power connector and so on, because everything will be traces basically...
On the other hand, DIY layout creator is made for that purpose, but I cannot draw a schematic first, and then go to layout mode and import a netlist.