What's a good software to design a circuit board?

[Nick]

I need to design one, anyone got any good links on tips on designing one? Which is the easy to use software? it its free than thats better :-)

Nick

[Guest]

ORCAD. It's about $9K

[Guest]

Eagle. 80X100mm limited: free.
Full version for cca. $250.

[PicFan]

A good place to start might be http://www.expresspcb.com/ExpressPCBHtm/Free_cad_software.htm

Good quality boards and free software to design them with, even includes schematic capture application.

Best Regards,
PicFan

[Andrew]

EAGLE from CadSoft, they've got a free version which you can use to create a double sided 100x80mm board.

[kender]

I'll add my vote for ExpressPCB. They are quick (you can get the board in 3-4 days), inexpensive (there is a bargain, where you can get 3 2-layer pcbs 2.5"x3.8" for $60 including shipping). They also produce 4-layer boards.

The only disadvantage is that their tools use proprietary format to store schematics and pcbs, and you will not be able to export them into any standard format.

Sincerely,
Nick

P.S. Neither I nor any of my relatives and friends work for express PCB.

[rnielsen]

I've used the program called Pads for several years. It's rather expensive, about $4k for the full version but you can download Demo versions that are limited a little bit.

http://www.mentor.com/pads/

The Schematic program is called PowerLogic that will allow you to generate a schematic that will also port a netlist/parts library into a PCBoard program called PowerPCB. They also come with a pretty good library. Both demo programs are limited to 30 components and 65 unique nets. It will output to a printer or a CAM file. I have tried several different programs and have found this to be the most friendly one. Component creation isn't bad either.

Ronald

[StuH_CC]

I use Easy-PC 8 ( www.numberone.com ). It's one of the most user-friendly PCB CAD systems available with standard outputs (Gerber, Excellon, ODB++ ).
Price depends on the functionality you need, it starts about UKP100. I use the 1000 pin version which comes complete with autorouter at about UKP200 - a cost/features balance which works for me.

A demo version is available for download - it's complete apart from most of the standard libraries, but won't save anything or plot anything.

I've tried the free ones, anything worthwhile tends to tie you to a particular PCB manufacturer and the others are either complete rubbish or severely restricted versions of the full program.

Stuart.

[Thomas Blake]

If you happen to be on Mac, use Douglas Layout Professional. I just finished an 8-layer card with about 950 I/O lines, using the 1mm BGA packages that Xilinx insists on using for their large arrays. (5-mil design rules.) It took about 5% of the time I would have invested in any of the previously-mentioned packages because of the fully Macintized interface. The downside is that you either have to use Douglas' manufacturing (good quality, but you can't shop the price around) or purchase a Gerber creator utility separately. I have done the latter. They do a Windows version but it sucks (slow, non-Windows feel).

[treitmey]

I use protel DXP. You can go from schematic, to sim to layout, route, and then to gerber manipulation through a camtastic interface.

They have alot of librarys,... but I still could use more.

[dlc@frii.com]

If you are a Macintosh user, look for Osmond. This is the easiest to
learn and use PCB layout software that I've ever used. However, I use
DesignWorks Pro to do my schematic capture, that is about $400.

DLC
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Dennis Clark dlc@frii.com
http://www.techtoystoday.com
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[Birdasaur]

The board layout guy on my team uses Protel DXP. He says having moved to that from Orcad has saved him a TON of time. All the points that were mentioned above are quite valid, but he says its the libraries that help the most. Just drag and drop the part you need and it does the rest, 95% of th time.

There are freebie versions available for demo, but just remember that they're limited.

[valemike]

I either handdraw it or use PCAD just to draw the schematic. Then pay $1500-$2000 to have someone lay it out.

[valemike]

PCB123.com is up and coming. There are a few bugs, but it does beat wiring up a breadboard.

[Ttelmah]