OK. You're right. FINE. Autorouting sucks (but KiCad is pretty nice)

Tim Wescott · 2015-02-12T19:38:36+00:00

I recently decided that Eagle was just getting too expensive (I'm stuck on version 4, and they're up to 7 or some such), and KiCad was starting to look viable. So I decided that for my next project I'd give KiCad a whirl. KiCad, in it's current version, is a pretty good basic EDA system. It's not super-zoot, but my boards run to smallish two-layer things without BGAs or other challenges, so I don't need super-fancy. As a bonus over Eagle 4, you can put custom fields in the component definitions (like, part numbers), and KiCad will group similar components when you make a BOM. So all dozen or so 100nF bypass caps on a board, for instance, will be grouped together with one part number in the BOM. One thing that Eagle has but KiCad lacks is an autorouter. There are open- source autorouter initiatives out there that supposedly work with it, but I hesitated to try one. Mindful of the chit-chat on this group slamming autorouters, I decided that I'd try hand-routing, which I hadn't done since the early 90's (ironically, because the then-Orcad autorouter sucked). So, to my chagrin, I've found that on the bigger boards hand-routing is no slower than the autorouting on Eagle, and on the smaller boards hand- routing makes a much nicer-looking board. The latest effort involved a board that's 35x41.5mm, and has about 40 components on it -- one 48-pin PLCC, three 16-pin chips, various connectors, and a mess of passives. It took me two days to route -- but it took me two days to get the previous version to autoroute with Eagle because I kept having to tweak parameters and move components around. To add to the slam on autorouters, the new version has more components (I added more I/O), more difficult components (I changed a surface-mount connector to through-hole), and all but one of the components on top of the board (Eagle needed me to put all the passives on the bottom for it to be able to route). So -- no more time spent, cleaner board, and more ...

Feb 12, 2015 27 Replies

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Jon Elson 11 years ago

Oh, yeah, creating components in Protel 99 is REALLY easy. The schematic component editor is a lot like the schematic editor, just the toolbars are different, and the PCB component editor is even closer to the PCB editor. I can usually create a simple PCB component in about 2 minutes.

I will soon have to edit that KiCad design, so I guess I will learn about the details of PCB component editing.

Jon

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Martin Riddle 11 years ago

Does PADS still 'jiggle' the components around ?

Cheers

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John Larkin 11 years ago

I don't know. We don't use any of the advanced features: autoplace, autoroute, push-and-shove, OLE, any of that.

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com

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Frank Miles 11 years ago

[snip]

We're using the version of Protel prior to 99. It works on Win7-32bit (at least for now) but not Win7-64bit. (Our IT people are obsessed with getting all WinXP systems out)

But we're exploring KiCad, and while it lacks some of the polish of Protel (especially those occasional crashes) the "manual" routing has some spiffy auto push&shove and other capabilities that are really nice (there's a YouTube video out there that shows this). Its component libraries aren't perfect, but I've never been satisfied with any layout program's libraries.

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Habib Bouaziz-Viallet 11 years ago

I was one of the first user of the early Kicad versions. JP. Charras (here in Grenoble) was the primary developer of KiCad (1996). KiCad stands for Kustom-Ingenieurs Cad ; Kustom-Ingenieurs was a small French Company in Grenoble. I have been working there and build many 3U/6U VME32 bus slave cards.

About 10 years ago, Source code of Kicad was released under GPL licence by M. JP Charras.

You can make "super fancy" PCB design with Kicad ... well not as easy than using Cadence Allegro concept but believe me you could do really professionnal grade stuff with. As an independent consultant i use KiCad on my Debian station for professionnal purpose and for many projects for world class companies (prototypes only).

IMHO Kicad lacks :

1- Diff pair routing (e.g. maintaining equal lenght traces on DDR2, PCIe ...etc) 2 - Push and shove routing

But we will see ... we never know !

Habib. IMHO Kicad lacks two things :

1- Pair diff routing

As a bonus over Eagle

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Frank Miles 11 years ago

[snip interesting KiCad history]

Unless I am misunderstanding what push & shove means - the latest version[s] have push&shove. If you're using a pre-packaged version it might not be there.

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John S 11 years ago

I've been using Eagle for a few years. I find the auto routing helpful.

I usually use it to do the initial routing from a new board and then I make the board "pretty". That is, I move components and traces to where my mental picture likes. It has saved me time because I am not a layout guy and it keeps me from making mistakes.

YMMV.

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Habib Bouaziz-Viallet 11 years ago

Thanks, i didn't realize push & shove is ready on latest KiCad version, i knew this was testing versions as well as pair diff routing facilities.

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