Wots wrong with PADS? Over the last 10 years or so most of my layouts have been done with PADS and I didn't see anything amiss.
But I am not picky about details. Like with cars. Dealer asks me what color I like and I tell him it doesn't matter ... "Say WHAT?!"
Ah, the cruzade ... You and your conspiracy theory :-)
Nay.
Don't matter. An autorouter is usually no good when it comes to hot stuff.
An it is, except for the library editor which really takes some getting used to. But the major shortcoming of Eagle is the lack of a hierarchy. They waved it off again for V6 which makes me think there is a deeper screw-up in the data structure. So I'll sit out that upgrade as well.
That should not matter. Usually it only gives problems if you re-use a chunk of schematic from a guy who used a cracked copy. But in the professional world that can hardly happen.
One problem that can happen with Eagle, a least not in 4.19: You cannot rename supply symbols. Yeah, it does work on the schematic but the netlist can still be screwed up. If in doubt spool out a netlist and take a look. The net has to be exactly named as the one you want.
For that it should work. There's even board houses that take Eagle files directly. But the usual cheap Chinese shop won't. Olimex does.
BTW, you can place a post in the Eagle NNTP forum and attach your files if not confidential. Usually either another user or Cadsoft staff will answer within 24h and let you know where the missing bolt was.
It's the best support forum east and west of the Mississippi.
We never autoroute. It usually makes a mess, and isn't smart enough to do fast stuff.
We have given up declaring power and ground planes (under PADS), too. We just draw a copper pour or so on a regular routing layer, which is a lot more flexible and actually easier to manage.
That does shock them. I ordered one car and told the guy "anything but green", and he made strangling noises like that.
But I like the blazing red Audi, what with every other car on the planet being shades of black. I've just lately seen a few car ads with non-grey cars featured.
One neat thing about PADS is that you can import/export anything in ASCII, including a design and all its library parts. You can do cool things with that.
Every now and then I do a board with all sorts of stuff on it: goofy idea circuits, parts adapters, connector adapters, filters, CPWs, whatever, usually a 4-layer, order a half dozen, and shear them up as needed.
Under Americas there is a phone number. I used to get Ed Robled...(add an o), but I don't know if he is still there. If so, he is knowledgeable. You earned the support with your license.
True, but I wouldn't bug Ed with this kind of stuff. It can be handled in the Cadsoft NG. Phil might even have his answer before Cadsoft USA opens in the morning.
Come to think of it, I've never used Cadsoft phone support. The occasional question was always answered in the forums.
Ed's crew hispanizised my name on the license. So now I am Jorge. Donde esta el mesclador de margarita? Que podria utilizar uno ahora mismo :-)
We've done a few small boards, maybe 20-50 components, autorouted in Altium[1]. It does an okay-passable job on resolving the paths -- it usually finishes. The results are always ugly though. The one with ~50 components we did in 4 layer. On the next rev, I did it by hand, in two layer, yielding substantial cost savings (plus the routes are absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself ;-) ).
[1] Which brings me to your second point. Bare Altium I *think* is under $5k, although a few years of subscriptions will obviously run up the total.
As far as appealing results, autorouters have no sense of style or direction and tend to treat branches individually. You can assign rules for buses and connection styles and widths and so on, but all this gets very tedious, and it's still very limited, in the grand scheme of things.
Most programs don't have a means to specify branch trace widths, which means any attempt at autorouting a supply line will end in dismal failure. Either it's all teensy stuff like you'd run for the logic bits, and your power bits burn it through, or it's all fat stuff that won't even fit on the logic bits, or it's some inappropriate compromise between these extremes that neither fits nor handles the current. Disabling autorouting on supply nets is usually futile, as you still have to navigate through the morass left by the autorouter; tools with "push" routing (which Altium supports) make this somewhat easier, but it will always be tedious (and leave your PCB swiss-cheesed from vias).
Tim
--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
I have no specific gripe against PADS. If I was going to advocate for a *replacement* for PADS, it certainly wouldn't be in favor of Cadsoft's DRM'd junk.
My reference was to the Brat expanding/enhancing her knowledge/skillset. Y'know, making herself more valuable in a lousy labor market.
Knowledge is power. Forewarned is forearmed. DRM sucks. Companies that treat their paid customers like something they need to scrape off their shoe need to die. NOW.
You could have stopped there.
I think that part goes without saying.
...and anyone thinking about re-using someone else's symbols, needs to see "DRM", above. Getting bitten in the butt then told by the software vendor to go screw yourself just leaves me completely cold wrt Cadsoft/EAGLE.
DRM **only** hurts the people who **pay** for products; the *actual* pirates all know how to get around it. If you're on deadline, EAGLE is **not** the product you want.
...if you've never been bitten in the butt by their DRM.
{Shakes head side to side} Just pitiful, Cadsoft.
Pitiful. Makes me think of M$'s "security" model.
...then there's my advice: Don't get *started* with Cadsoft. ...or any company that uses DRM and treats customers like something they wouldn't want to step in.
IMHO Eagle is the best CAD right now, or could be, _if_ they had a hierarchy. Beats me why they don't see that importance.
In engineering it isn't lousy. Well, at least not in analog. I was hoping for a couple weeks off over Christmas. Not gonna happen ...
I am 100% of different opinion. Plus I've not seen one lone case of DRM issues and I am using Eagle since more than five years. And their customer support is stellar.
Not really. I have seen autorouters do acceptable work on massively parallel slow stuff. You don't really want to route a 256 by 256 crosspoint switch by hand. At least I wouldn't.
Then why has it never happened with me or any of several clients who also use Eagle extensively? Of course, one should only deal with reputable sources. IMHO that goes without saying.
AFAIK library parts or symbols do not cause issues but chunks of clandestine schematics can.
Traditionally, a successful crippleware model for them. It is also restricted to 80mm x 100mm (~3.5" x ~4") and single-sheet schematics.
You can get much more from (Free Software) KiCAD or gEDA.
Not in your lifetime, dude. Instead, Cadsoft added DRM to the payware version of EAGLE and told customers^Wsuckers that when they encounter that, they are on their own.
The autorouter worked very well for me. Of course, the parameters have to be set up properly and I had fits with that at first. I could not have produced all the boards I have done so far without the AR.
Strangely, they spelled my family name correctly and that's a difficult one. Almost anyone botches that but I got used to it. At Guide Dogs I am registered as Jerry and it seems to take an act of Congress to change this, so I decided to just live with it.
they have a slightly less crippled version called freemium from element14 (farnell) I believe it is 4 layers and 4 sheets and you'll need to renew license every 60 days
rs-components have DesignSpark don't think there's any limitations in that either, and there's scripts that will convert eagle schematics libraries and boards and it seems to work quite well
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