--A pal showed me this site over the weekend; it gets idiots like me from breadboard to gerber files with a minimum of fuss. It's a work in progress but I think it's awesome.
--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Beauty times brains
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : is a constant..
...
You think it's awesome and I think it's just lame spam.
-- Thanks, Fred.
Steamer's serious about what he's doing, he just doesn't post a lot on this group.
He's into automatic steam calliopes*, he's much more of a machinist than an electronics guy, yet he's learning it anyway.
_You_ may not care for such an initiative, _I_ may not (I'm quite happy with Eagle), but if it works for him and he wants to let others in his position know, why get on his case?
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services
That site seems to be largely about making ECAD more open. It has a page that I have had bookmarked which mentions the licenses and prices of several ECADs.
--Messed around with it into the wee hours last night; bit of a learning curve. Managed to get something out of it but had trouble with the design-a-part feature (trying to make a 4-number display) and wound up using something else with equivalent pinout (10-pin I.C.) when I realized I was only designing a circuit board and only pin locations really mattered. I think I'd like the 'breadboard' mode better if the 'wires' could be 'bent' rather than running as straight lines which makes for a very confusing picture.
--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Don't get mad,
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : get even...
--Got the bent wire thing figured out but there's still a *major* bug using the "PCB" feature; best to save, then use it, then close without saving otherwise everything gets messy real fast. Yes I'm definitely looking for something better to generate copper traces into optimal geometry; anyone got a recommendation?
--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : Don't get mad,
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : get even...
Have you tried Eagle? There's definitely going to be a steep learning curve at first, but it's free if you're doing small two-layer boards, and you'll be producing real Gerber output that can be used by any serious board houses (of which there are tons that make prototypes at reasonable rates) in addition to getting prints that you can use to make your own boards if that floats your boat.
-- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services
Tim Wescott wrote:
Obviously "better" covers a lot of ground. Here's the disclaimer for Cadsoft's infected junk:
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