Eagle for PCB or something else???

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Echelon_Force

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May 7, 2012, 1:19:06 PM5/7/12
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I started laying out a PCB last night and quickly ran into the Eagle "Lite" version PCB size limits. While I have no doubt that the Hobby version is worth most of the $165; however, before I fork over for it, I'm curious what everybody else uses and if there are cheaper passable alternatives...I doubt I'll do anything with more than 2 layers.

Thoughts?

Ray Scheufler

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May 7, 2012, 1:23:36 PM5/7/12
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I use kicad. It is FOSS. No arbitrary restrictions. Its mentality is different from eagle. Schematic items are loosely bound to physical footprints.

Have you ever laid out a board? There are kicad tutorials out on the internet which are pretty good but that is from someone who already knew how to layout boards.

Ray Scheufler

On May 7, 2012 12:19 PM, "Echelon_Force" <jboo...@gmail.com> wrote:
I started laying out a PCB last night and quickly ran into the Eagle "Lite" version PCB size limits. While I have no doubt that the Hobby version is worth most of the $165; however, before I fork over for it, I'm curious what everybody else uses and if there are cheaper passable alternatives...I doubt I'll do anything with more than 2 layers.

Thoughts?

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Echelon_Force

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May 7, 2012, 1:35:42 PM5/7/12
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Yeah I've done layout before, but I've never sent anything to be fabbed before. I'll look into kicad, open source is a big +1.

Any comment's on how its library of parts compares to eagle? I'm a big fan of the Sparkfun library for Eagle because I feel I can trust the physical footprints, which I don't usually want to create myself if I can avoid it.


Ray Scheufler

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May 7, 2012, 1:41:45 PM5/7/12
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Kicad has a much smaller library of parts included. Last I checked there were some sites that had a bunch of components you could download. The built in set of standard footprints are good (pdip tqfp nice standard packages) by you will usually end up creating schematic parts which is easy. There is even a site I found that will generate standard footprint parts with a given number if pins.

Ray Scheufler

On May 7, 2012 12:35 PM, "Echelon_Force" <jboo...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah I've done layout before, but I've never sent anything to be fabbed before. I'll look into kicad, open source is a big +1.

Any comment's on how its library of parts compares to eagle? I'm a big fan of the Sparkfun library for Eagle because I feel I can trust the physical footprints, which I don't usually want to create myself if I can avoid it.


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