Any CADStar comments/stories/users?

*+Crapstar *+use-CADStar+-30-days&scoring=d

Dunno about the latest Cadstar as the last time I looked at it was maybe 6 years ago and I haven't heard that's it's changed much. It seemed a capable product but a little dated in concept, and looked as it it had a fairly long learning curve. I now use Pulsonix (which has Cadstar import). I find it an excellent product and it has high speed design capabilities i.e. min/max length tracks, diff pair routing, serpentine tracks. If you're surveying the market at the higher end then I'd say take a look.

Prescott

Hello,

I have been using Cadstar for quite a few years. And my overall impression is that it is worth the effort and cost. It is fairly easy to get started and lots of great tutorial material. The library system is in my opinion one of the best I have seen.

Setting up your defaults in the PCB and schematic templates may require a little patience, but read the tutorials well, and the pain is endurable.

Now and then a bug slips out, as always when dealing with more complex software packages. Zuken normally fix these quite rapidly and distribute the updates on the Linkz website.

When Zuken released V6.0 it was scarred by some quite disturbing bugs. However with the V7 and V8 releases, I have not seen anything.

Best regards Henrik

The best pcb software is generally the one you know.

If you have used Cadstar for some time and are happy with it then certainly stick with it and upgrade.

If you are new to Cadstar don't touch it with a bargpole - presuming you have been using another pcb CAD package you will find it hopeless and its structure/organisation so designed to break the flow of engineering thought processes during 'on screen' pcb design it is unbelievable. (Cadstar has more bells and whistles than just about any other package to support its marketing which is geared toward non-electronic design managers who buy it for their electronics design departments.)

There are a lot of packages out there and it can be a minefield. Just be sure that you need a package at this price level. The Protels, Pulsonix, Pads etc of this world (I just mention these because they happen to begin with P! and are in the Cadstar price bracket) are poweful tools that can take a bit of learning.

Good luck

James,

This software is an extreme waste of money. It has so many short comings. I wasted $10K. The productivity is very low and you will routinely lose all your work. Almost everyone is using OrCad for schematic capture and PADS ( PowerPCB) for layout.

My two cents worth,

Tod

The company does not mind spending money, BUT they do frown on wasting it. I've been pretty much orphaned by P-CAD/Altium because I can't stand what they have done to the package since PCAD 2002 (If I had wanted Protel I would have bought it) and they aren't actively working on patches to fix the problems in the version I like. So, I am on the hunt again for a new CAD package that I like and is being supported. I would prefer to keep the schematic entry and PCB layout to be as seamlessly integrated as possible, I don't mind shelling out to a router but that is about it. So, at this point I am kinda boycotting Altium and I didn't like Eagle and I am going to have to reconsider the CADStar package. I guess I'll keep looking.

Jim

If you like to have schematic capture and layout in the same package you can look at Mentor Graphics. PowerPCB, and PowerBGA are their PC based layout tools. PowerLogic is the schematic capture tool. OrCAD is a good package too. The schematic capture tool is called "Capture" and the layout tool with the basic autorouter is called "Layout Plus". I just happen to think that OrCAD "Capture" and Mentor Graphics "PowerPCB" are the best from each company.

Tod

comings. I

all

PowerPCB)

and

it

HS

James, While I understand that some people still love their PADs I can't watch somebody being sent that direction without saying something. I too used PADS PowerPCB through the better part of the 90's and it was my system of choice at that time. Today I shake my head and wonder what has happened besides the constant change of ownership and rebranding of PADs. I take issue with Tod's comment that PADs is the best from Mentor, yeah right and I am the tooth fairy. He obviously doesn't want a real, modern, useful system or he wouldn't have ditz'd Expedition with his comment.

First word of caution, stay away from PADs Logic, it is a piece of shit that PADs gave away free all through the 90's as a freebie if you bought the PCB package. Even when I used PADs as my system of choice I never once met anybody that used PADs Logic, that should tell you something. Everybody got it free but they would go out and spend more money to buy something else, usually OrCAD originally, some Protel later. Today Mentor is charging $1500 for it and there has been no visible development done on it since the very early 90's, it is archaic and crude.

For schematic capture you could use OrCAD as suggested or your could try and get an old version of Protel just to use the schematic. It is very close to OrCAD's schematic. Originally when I first used PADs I was using DOS OrCAD Capture, a short while later we switched to Protel for schematic since it was Windows based and superior to the DOS OrCAD capture at that time.

Second word of caution, I have recently heard from some people supposedly in the know, that PADs is on the move again. This is unsubstantiated rumor but the word is that PADs is moving to some 'entity' called Millenium. What or who Millenium is I don't know. Is it a prospective purchaser, a new division of Mentor or an old age home convalesence home for a tired old CAD package who knows. Is it in N.A. or Bangalore India, I don't know.

I can understand your comments about Altium, I am a Protel/Altium user myself but on the other side of the CAD tools. I also periodically still use PADs in my present employment and I fear each time I am going to have to use it. Part of that is the loss of familiarity with the package over the last almost 10 years (used Accel/PCAD Jr. for a few years and more recently P99SE) but the rest of it comes from the fact that it is still a DOS engine running under the very same ole phoney GUI developed back in the mid 90's. The manner of dealing with rules is arduous and limited, copying and pasting between databases is difficult and varies depending on what you are copying. The ability to accurate copy and place fine detail is solely reliant on your ingenuity at inventing way to reference those copied bits between databases. Importing mechanical details in DXF format is painful and you must be very precise in how you configure the DXF or it will simply blow up. You must configure the DXF import as though it is a PADs export to DXF. Don't feel too comfortable about opening multiple designs with PADS, remember it is still a DOS engine under the hood, there are all sorts of non-windows compliant issues especially with multiple windows running. In short, give it a good test drive before even looking at the purchase contract.

Personally if I were looking myself, Zuken would get a real good looking over and test drive. Don't just play with their canned demo designs. Do a small but semi-complicated design yourself, from start to finish. Find their user forum (Yahoo, Google or company run) and seek out actual users comments. Would those users purchase it today if they were looking at it fresh? Other than Zuken I would check out Mentor Expedition if my company was willing to spend roughly double the money but get a good working tool that can handle most anything you can throw at it technology wise today or tomorrow.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.

"Tod Adamson"  wrote in message 
news:V6OdneJgx993zUzZnZ2dnUVZ_rqdnZ2d@adelphia.com...
> If you like to have schematic capture and layout in the same package you 
> can
> look at Mentor Graphics. PowerPCB, and PowerBGA are their PC based layout
> tools. PowerLogic is the schematic capture tool.
> OrCAD is a good package too. The schematic capture tool is called 
> "Capture"
> and the layout tool with the basic autorouter is called "Layout Plus". I
> just happen to think that OrCAD "Capture" and Mentor Graphics "PowerPCB" 
> are
> the best from each company.
>
> Tod

Tod, how do you back-annotate across different vendors products? Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:

SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators: Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:

Mike, It typically isn't that difficult if the two products make any attempt to support it. Typically (I know it is true for PADs or Protel) the PCB packages will generate a simple WAS-IS file. Typically it is a simple text file. A number of the schematic packages support import of the WAS-IS file. Maybe you have to do a little massaging or formatting to make it work. Typically it does have limitations where it won't fully support pin and gate swapping, some may. But if needed you can do the pin and gate swapping manually anyway and simply drive it from the schematic forward rather than backwards.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.

"Mike Monett"  wrote in message 
news:Xns981461A777132Noemailadr@208.49.80.251...
>
> Tod, how do you back-annotate across different vendors products?
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Monett

Hey Guys,

Here is what I remember about CADStar schematic.

• No Undo function

• No auto panning

• You are forced to build a PCB foot print for every schematic symbol before you can place the symbol.

• When making a schematic symbol, the symbol does not accept the pin number directly. You have to maintain a separate file with the pin number mapping.

• You can not cut or delete a symbol without every net connected to it being cut or deleted as well. They have this thing called a "dangler" you are required to connect to a net before you delete something. With the Xilinx Virtex 4 FF1148 package you would have to place hundreds of "dandlers" before you could delete the symbol.

• If you modify a symbol and move pins or add new ones, when you paste the new symbol all the nets will get messed up because the tool tries to remap them automatically..

• The support line is terrible. All they try to do is to sell you on attending their seminars.

Granted, I have not used CadStar since 3.1, Zuken would have had to completely redesign the foundation of their system. This POS almost ruined a project and caused a three month delay. As such, I would never recommend this nightmare cad tool.

I agree that the PowerLogic schematic tool is lousy, but I like OrCAD "Capture"

I did not here any mention of Cadence OrCAD "Capture" and Layout Plus. Are these tools satisfactory in your estimation?

watch

PADS

choice

the

Tod's

shit

the

got

$1500

try

close

since

prospective

for

don't

use

use

engine

pasting

copying.

your

databases.

it

looking

their

layout

Manual changes are risky and highly error-prone. They are virtually impossible for humans to check, and can generate hidden problems in production boards that may be impossible to locate.

If manual back-annotation must be used anywhere in a process, change the processs. The risk of disaster is too great. Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:

SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators: Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:

Mike, I don't know about you but I can readily switch gates in a multigate part without introducing errors, been doing it for many years including prior to CAD, thanks. What would you ever do without CAD? Or how do you get your gates right in the first place, if you can't manually swap them and bring them forward into the PCB later? What is manual back-annotation, what is manual forward annotation? Part of DESIGN! What is the alternative, Button Pushers? Computer operators?

Maybe you could explain what differences there would be with my comments you quote below, verses the original design and how it would be any more risky than the original processes that got you to the initial PCB design in the first place?

OrCAD? For me not a consideration, I hear too many negative comments and it has been relegated to Bangalore maintenance and support.

--
Sincerely,
Brad Velander.

"Mike Monett"  wrote in message 
news:Xns981565CA5E58FNoemailadr@208.49.80.251...
> "Brad Velander"  wrote:
>
>> But if needed you can do the pin and gate swapping
>> manually anyway and simply drive it from the schematic forward rather
>> than backwards.
>
> Manual changes are risky and highly error-prone. They are virtually
> impossible for humans to check, and can generate hidden problems in
> production boards that may be impossible to locate.
>
> If manual back-annotation must be used anywhere in a process, change the
> processs. The risk of disaster is too great.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Monett

Brad,

Maybe you are perfect, but the people I have to hire certainly are not. They get distracted, bored, tired, interrupted, hungry, have to go pee, develop tunnel vision, and all the other human traits that lead to mistakes.

The main concern in back annotation is to swap components to eliminate noise problems or parasitic oscillation caused by long traces or bad part placement. The parts may be different sections of an op amp, or high-speed ecl or cmos gates. Noise-sensitive circuits, such as oscillators or low- level amplifiers need to be kept separate from high-speed or high-power circuits.

You can see this easily while viewing the pcb. I mark each critical node on the schematic, then manually route the trace on the pcb. However, a better route can often be obtained by swapping to a different part.

Swapping means back-annotating to the schematic. If this is not done correctly, and you do the final board route without checking carefully, the board may have problems that only show up with certain parts or operating conditions. This can be difficult or impossible to debug when the board is shipped. Sure, you can claim it would be caught in a design review, but that is not certain due to the human frailities mentioned above.

Due to the complexity of the problem, I would not accept software that required manual back-annotation. But if you can find different vendors that can import/export the data to different formats, and not make errors in the conversion, that would be fine. Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:

SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators: Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:

Mike, The main concern for Pin/Gate swapping and back-annotation is to better route the PCB. Typical Pin and Gate swapping is not a design tool, it is a simple manhattan length minimization. As a mahattan length minimization it is not even always the best routed solution. I commonly do the gate or pin swap manually anyways because the manhattan solution is not as routable as other solutions I can readily see in the design. That is not even considering SI or other issues, just the pin/gate swap for routing.

Seems from your details below you want much more than Pin/Gate swapping and back-annotation, you want design specific knowledge complete with full SI tooling and knowledge. You want a design engineer and you are describing junoir PCB designers that screw it up on you. Can't put that burden on the tools either unless you are buying $50K+ tools as well. Even then you have to full understand the tools and their detailed limitations before you will get results you could reliably bank on. Even with such tools, anything less then a fully competent Engineer running the best tools available will not get you what you want. So your issue is not with Pin/Gate swapping and back-annotation but it is a design issue of the highest degree. No push button will ever do that for you.

I certainly never said that I am perfect but it seems that you are probably hiring junior people to do experienced required work. Typical for the PCB design industry, that is why many years ago I decided to try and break that cycle, moving from general circuit design to PCB design as my specialty. Unfortunately the field is still generally colored with the same single brush. And everyone (designers and managers) thinks that every electronics designer/engineer can do it better themselves but they typically never learn about the actual PCB design and fabrication end of the task. The does and don'ts of PCB design for fabrication and assembly.

-- Sincerely, Brad Velander.

P.S. Also sounds like your present designers never check their work as they go if they experience the problems you have indicated. After back annotating the first you do is check the integrity of that function by trying to update your circuit again (pass the changes forward again to the PCB) and making sure the changes went as planned. No point in waiting until the end to find up something screwed up on the prior major change. Then again, seems that you didn't fully check the changes that you had requested either, nor run full checks of the design after routing. Because it is a human frailty? I get the distinct impression you may be making up issues to refute the legitimacy of manual or semi-manual back annotation between different tools because you are seemingly grasping at unrelated issues or issues that would be caught through proper checking and wouldn't be caught without other features/checks anyway.

Yes Brad. And the reason for back-annotation is to put that information back into the schematic.

That is not easy to do. There are many ways to make errors.

That's why I would never consider software that requires manual changes. A proper computer program is much faster and makes no errors.

Of course, you are free to do whatever you wish. Good luck.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:

SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators: Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:

Rubbish. OrCAD and PADS are certainly both very popular tools, but there are at least a decent-sized handful of similarly popular programs out there.

Both Orcad and PADS had their day in the sun, but it ended around

1990 something with the introduction of Windows 3.0. They both dumped their dos programs, and went with inferior windows implementations.

-Chuck