Altium Designer Pricing

[Tim Wescott]

So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.

I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
"hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
pay to buy our product" sort of companies.

I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.

Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?

I think I may stick with Eagle.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

[Phil Hobbs]

On 4/2/2014 7:51 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.

You didn't need those anyway. They just get you into trouble. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

[Joerg]

Tim Wescott wrote:
> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>

Might be over $7k:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/altium-delivers-altium-designer-14-140000908.html

> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>

I will, at least for now.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

[Tim Williams]

It's around $5k for a seat.

You can probably phone a rep and get a better number. I've heard 3k to
10k, but I think the 3k numbers were old numbers, and 10k might be certain
package deals like with subscription stuff.

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs
Electrical Engineering Consultation
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com

"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.really> wrote in message
news:392dnVBzR9QSP6HO...@giganews.com...

[Rich Webb]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, Tim Wescott
<t...@seemywebsite.really> wrote:

>So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
>I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>"hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
>I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
>Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
>I think I may stick with Eagle.

You've probably already seen the rumors that the Ver 7 release of
Eagle will have hierarchical sheets? No personal knowledge, just
something from one of the Eagle Usenet groups.

OTOH, Kicad's current snapshot lets one design and use a custom page
layout (frame and title block) in place of its old default. This is
not in the current "stable" release (that's still the July 2013) but
using https://launchpad.net/kicad-winbuilder it's very easy to build
an executable from the source tree. There's a page layout editor on
the main project manager toolbar.

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, the renowned Tim Wescott
<t...@seemywebsite.really> wrote:

>So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
>I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>"hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
>I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
>Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
>I think I may stick with Eagle.

I think you're going to have to call and find out.. I got a client to
purchase a few seats, some schematic and some full package, and then
another seat a year or two later and the second round was about half
price.

Make sure you ask about a "perpetual license" rather than some
subscription deal... unless you can live with a subscription.

I get the feeling their pricing is a bit.. situational.. so you may be
able to work a good deal.

This is an offer to us "Design Partners" from a couple years ago
(Unfortunately not when I needed to make a purchase).

"Microchip is apparently switching all of their electronic CAD
software over to Altium. As part of that deal, they have extended an
offer to all Design Partners to purchase the Altium software for the
price of $2500 USD per seat. This is a price reduction of about
$4500 (List price US $6995).

The first year's software maintenance cost of $1500 per seat is
included in that cost. However, the on-going cost is that yearly
cost of $1500 per seat."

It's pretty decent software, all the EDA packages have their quirks.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
sp...@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:55:54 -0400, the renowned Phil Hobbs
<ho...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

>On 4/2/2014 7:51 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>
>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
>You didn't need those anyway. They just get you into trouble. ;)
>
>Cheers
>
>Phil Hobbs

But Altium doesn't support Unix.

[Phil Hobbs]

On 4/2/2014 9:01 PM, Spehro Pefhany wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:55:54 -0400, the renowned Phil Hobbs
> <ho...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>
>> On 4/2/2014 7:51 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>>
>>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>
>> You didn't need those anyway. They just get you into trouble. ;)
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Phil Hobbs
>
> But Altium doesn't support Unix.

But once you hand them over, you don't need a supporter anymore.

[David Platt]

In article <u9cpj9l5b1p52vjn4...@4ax.com>,

Spehro Pefhany <spef...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

>Make sure you ask about a "perpetual license" rather than some
>subscription deal... unless you can live with a subscription.
>
>I get the feeling their pricing is a bit.. situational.. so you may be
>able to work a good deal.

It might be a bit like buying a car. There could be better times to
ask (e.g. just before the end of the quarter, when the salescritters
are eager to make their quota) and worse times.

[Syd Rumpo]

On 03/04/2014 00:51, Tim Wescott wrote:
> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.

Unless you're pretty much a full time PCB layout guy, leave it well
alone. It's far too complicated for the casual user, every time you
need to use it you've forgotten how.

I suppose they have to justify the price with 'added value', but to me
that's 'added obfuscation'. Altium benefit partly from the big company
thing of, "it must be good because it costs a lot".


Cheers
--
Syd

[Chris Jones]

On 03/04/2014 10:51, Tim Wescott wrote:
> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>

I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
number. It was in the range that others have suggested.

I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
whilst I was working with it. If you do buy an Altium licence, I would
point out that you would have an easier installation experience if you
run one of the widely available pirated DVD images even though you have
a licence to run the official version. Why they expect paying customers
to be happy with an product so much harder to install than the pirated
version, is beyond me. Punishing paying users with onerous licencing
procedures is not going to make the pirated DVDs go away, in fact I
predict quite the opposite.

For anything where a client doesn't demand altium, I suggest considering
Kicad, at least for moderate complexity designs. It is great for
collaborating and others reviewing your work, as you can let people
install as many copies as you want. Certainly Altium has some advanced
features that Kicad doesn't, but sometimes that isn't an advantage, like
when I inherit a file with some weird setting turned on, and can't
understand why it is behaving weirdly. The configurable settings in
Altium seem about as complicated as the Windows Registry of a malware
infested PC, i.e. pretty darn confusing.

A nice get-out with Kicad is that the PCB files are basically text
files, so in desperation you can always just go in there and edit
features if you can't see how to do it from the GUI, though I haven't
had much need to.

Chris

[Joerg]

Phil Hobbs wrote:
> On 4/2/2014 9:01 PM, Spehro Pefhany wrote:
>> On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 19:55:54 -0400, the renowned Phil Hobbs
>> <ho...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/2/2014 7:51 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>>>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>>>
>>>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>>>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>>>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>>
>>> You didn't need those anyway. They just get you into trouble. ;)
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Phil Hobbs
>>
>> But Altium doesn't support Unix.
>
> But once you hand them over, you don't need a supporter anymore.
>

I think we'll all think differently about that once we are in a nursing
home :-(

[Joerg]

Rich Webb wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, Tim Wescott
> <t...@seemywebsite.really> wrote:
>
>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>
>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>
>> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>
>> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>>
>> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>
> You've probably already seen the rumors that the Ver 7 release of
> Eagle will have hierarchical sheets? No personal knowledge, just
> something from one of the Eagle Usenet groups.
>

*WHAT?*

<jumping up and down in excitement>

Are you sure? I suggested this many times and gave up. The Cadsoft guys
sometimes said "Yeah, great idea, we'll put it on the to-do list" and
then dropped it anyhow. Which group carried that announcement?

It is my firm belief that the lack of a hierarchy is what has cost
Cadsoft a gazillion in lost revenue. Even among the existing client
base. For example, I haven't upgraded since 4.16 because I simply found
it ain't worth upgrading. If they really bring out a hierarchy and keep
the prices reasonable I'll write a check.

The other thing they should make sure is that V7 users can store in
formats 2-3 releases back. It's a major problem with CAD. Everyone
should learn from how it's done in word processing where to this day I
store in MS-Word 97 compatible and then there never is a readability
problem.

> OTOH, Kicad's current snapshot lets one design and use a custom page
> layout (frame and title block) in place of its old default. This is
> not in the current "stable" release (that's still the July 2013) but
> using https://launchpad.net/kicad-winbuilder it's very easy to build
> an executable from the source tree. There's a page layout editor on
> the main project manager toolbar.

They need to put that in a stable release. Otherwise Kicad can't really
be used professionally.

[Joerg]

Chris Jones wrote:
> On 03/04/2014 10:51, Tim Wescott wrote:
>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>
>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>
>> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>
>> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>>
>> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>>
>
> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>
> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
> whilst I was working with it.

Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
software for me.

[...]

[Frank Miles]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, Tim Wescott wrote:

> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.

I think they have an arrangement where you can try it for 30 days or
somesuch without permanent financial commitment. We did that. It
would have been a natural for us (you would think) since we currently
use an antiquated Protel package (Altium was once Protel). But getting
the licensing mechanism to work was problematic, backward
compatibility wasn't smooth, the program is very complex, and the whole
guaranteed permanent licensing servitude makes me very nervous.

But if you need to do complex boards maybe you should evaluate it for
yourself. Just be sure you have significant time in the next X days
because it will take serious time to get far enough along the learning
curve to know if it will work for you or not.

[Tim Williams]

"Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:bq5a91...@mid.individual.net...

>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>
>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about
>> Kicad.
>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>> whilst I was working with it.
>
>
> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
> software for me.

If you have the license file, you can download the Altium License Server
so that your computer literally phones home to itself to check that the
license is there.

There are also check-out-able licenses that only have to phone home every
day or a few, or whatever.

[Joerg]

Tim Williams wrote:
> "Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:bq5a91...@mid.individual.net...
>>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>>
>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about
>>> Kicad.
>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>> whilst I was working with it.
>>
>> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
>> software for me.
>
> If you have the license file, you can download the Altium License Server
> so that your computer literally phones home to itself to check that the
> license is there.
>
> There are also check-out-able licenses that only have to phone home every
> day or a few, or whatever.
>

Personally I don't trust this kind of complicated stuff. I've had cases
where clients wanted me to (legally) use one of their licenses and it
didn't work across an ocean or whatever. Then the support staff came in,
lots of time was wasted and they could not fix it. No thanks.

I like the Cadsoft concept where they ... simply trust their customers.
Once in a while there will be a bad apple and they have to block that
license as rogue but that only affects work created with pirated software.

[Joerg]

Joerg wrote:
> Tim Williams wrote:
>> "Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:bq5a91...@mid.individual.net...
>>>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>>>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>>>
>>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about
>>>> Kicad.
>>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>>> whilst I was working with it.
>>> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
>>> software for me.
>> If you have the license file, you can download the Altium License Server
>> so that your computer literally phones home to itself to check that the
>> license is there.
>>
>> There are also check-out-able licenses that only have to phone home every
>> day or a few, or whatever.
>>
>
> Personally I don't trust this kind of complicated stuff. I've had cases
> where clients wanted me to (legally) use one of their licenses and it
> didn't work across an ocean or whatever. Then the support staff came in,
> lots of time was wasted and they could not fix it. No thanks.
>

For the record: This was not Altium but other CAD.

[Joe Chisolm]

Altium has a couple of different models. The floating license is the
one where you need the net connection. Floating is nice if you can
over subscribe your folks usage. The other nice thing is I dont have
to setup a license server of any kind. I can work anywhere as long
as I have a net connection.

If I had 10+ people using Altium day in and day out I would just
bite the bullet, and get full license and setup a license server.

--
Chisolm
Republic of Texas

[sms]

On 4/2/2014 4:51 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.

It's very difficult to get a straight answer out of Altium.

Stick with Eagle. We are transitioning from KiCad to Eagle. KiCad is
okay but there are some PCB things that are difficult or impossible to
do with KiCad that are easy to do with Eagle. Try doing a PCB inductor
with a spiral coil on KiCad!

I think the $5K price is about right IIRC from the last time I talked to
a salesperson.

The nice thing about Altium is that (nearly) all the semiconductor
companies have up-to-date parts libraries for Altium. Not so much the
case for Eagle, KiCad, or OrCad.

[Joe Chisolm]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, Tim Wescott wrote:

> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.

Schematic capture and layout will probably run you north of $6K.
My layout guy has the full suite, I just use schematic capture.
They doubled the capture price this year when they got rid of their
direct sales. When I first got it I did a one time buy from
a distributor and the yearly renewals were a simple online
task directly with Altium. Now you have to get everything through
a dealer with their associated markups and it seems the dealers
are regional. Your dealer is based on your location. I
could not find a way to pick and choose the dealer and price
shopping amongst them is probably close to impossible.

If you can afford it and deal with the learning curve, setting
up your parts library again,etc - it's a nice tool.

But unless you are going to be doing very dense, high layer count,
high speed boards I would stay with what you have.

[Rich Webb]

On Thu, 03 Apr 2014 07:37:54 -0700, Joerg <inv...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>Rich Webb wrote:
>> On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, Tim Wescott
>> <t...@seemywebsite.really> wrote:
>>
>>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>>
>>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>>
>>> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>>
>>> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>>>
>>> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>>
>> You've probably already seen the rumors that the Ver 7 release of
>> Eagle will have hierarchical sheets? No personal knowledge, just
>> something from one of the Eagle Usenet groups.
>>
>
>*WHAT?*
>
><jumping up and down in excitement>
>
>Are you sure? I suggested this many times and gave up. The Cadsoft guys
>sometimes said "Yeah, great idea, we'll put it on the to-do list" and
>then dropped it anyhow. Which group carried that announcement?

Found it. This seems to be a link to the original posting:
<http://www.eaglecentral.ca/forums/index.php/m/154143/a10cc7a22a84874e5409bf125c9792ef/?srch=hierarchical#msg_154143>
About time 1:30 in the video.

>
>It is my firm belief that the lack of a hierarchy is what has cost
>Cadsoft a gazillion in lost revenue. Even among the existing client
>base. For example, I haven't upgraded since 4.16 because I simply found
>it ain't worth upgrading. If they really bring out a hierarchy and keep
>the prices reasonable I'll write a check.
>
>The other thing they should make sure is that V7 users can store in
>formats 2-3 releases back. It's a major problem with CAD. Everyone
>should learn from how it's done in word processing where to this day I
>store in MS-Word 97 compatible and then there never is a readability
>problem.
>
>
>> OTOH, Kicad's current snapshot lets one design and use a custom page
>> layout (frame and title block) in place of its old default. This is
>> not in the current "stable" release (that's still the July 2013) but
>> using https://launchpad.net/kicad-winbuilder it's very easy to build
>> an executable from the source tree. There's a page layout editor on
>> the main project manager toolbar.
>
>
>They need to put that in a stable release. Otherwise Kicad can't really
>be used professionally.

True. I'm Guessing (TM) that there will be a new stable release of
Kicad around mid-2014 as well, given that the previous was last July.

CERN is getting involved in Kicad development which should help
mitigate the "Cheetos-covered nerd in basement" perception. ;-)
http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki

[Joerg]

Thanks. That is a solid promise this time. They should have handed him a
microphone to muffle the background din of the trade show. In this day
and age we have Bluetooth which should make it easy :-)

>> It is my firm belief that the lack of a hierarchy is what has cost
>> Cadsoft a gazillion in lost revenue. Even among the existing client
>> base. For example, I haven't upgraded since 4.16 because I simply found
>> it ain't worth upgrading. If they really bring out a hierarchy and keep
>> the prices reasonable I'll write a check.
>>
>> The other thing they should make sure is that V7 users can store in
>> formats 2-3 releases back. It's a major problem with CAD. Everyone
>> should learn from how it's done in word processing where to this day I
>> store in MS-Word 97 compatible and then there never is a readability
>> problem.
>>
>>
>>> OTOH, Kicad's current snapshot lets one design and use a custom page
>>> layout (frame and title block) in place of its old default. This is
>>> not in the current "stable" release (that's still the July 2013) but
>>> using https://launchpad.net/kicad-winbuilder it's very easy to build
>>> an executable from the source tree. There's a page layout editor on
>>> the main project manager toolbar.
>>
>> They need to put that in a stable release. Otherwise Kicad can't really
>> be used professionally.
>
> True. I'm Guessing (TM) that there will be a new stable release of
> Kicad around mid-2014 as well, given that the previous was last July.
>
> CERN is getting involved in Kicad development which should help
> mitigate the "Cheetos-covered nerd in basement" perception. ;-)
> http://www.ohwr.org/projects/cern-kicad/wiki

Yep, happened a while ago. I believe they (or another big entity?)
decided against gEDA and for Kicad. Which was not a big surprise to me.

[Joerg]

That won't work at all for me. Even here in the office the Internet goes
down at times. I can't afford being dead in the water with my work
during those times.

> If I had 10+ people using Altium day in and day out I would just
> bite the bullet, and get full license and setup a license server.
>

Well, with Eagle you don't need any license server. You just use the
license file that they send you after payment, plug it in, and that's
it. I can use the same license on my laptop and they trust me that I
won't disclose it or let a 2nd person use it simultaneously on my laptop
(nobody else ever gets to touch that anyhow).

[Tim Wescott]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 21:01:09 -0400, Spehro Pefhany wrote:

> On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, the renowned Tim Wescott
> <t...@seemywebsite.really> wrote:
>
>>So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>>screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>
>>I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>>"hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>>pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>
>>I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>
>>Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>>
>>I think I may stick with Eagle.
>
> I think you're going to have to call and find out.. I got a client to
> purchase a few seats, some schematic and some full package, and then
> another seat a year or two later and the second round was about half
> price.
>
> Make sure you ask about a "perpetual license" rather than some
> subscription deal... unless you can live with a subscription.
>
> I get the feeling their pricing is a bit.. situational.. so you may be
> able to work a good deal.

I'm cranky on this topic enough to be a bit of a crank, but the
"situational pricing" that I want to have is that I ask for a price, they
give me one, and I either say "yes" or "no".

If they come back with a different price the second time, then they were
lying the first time and no matter how attractive the second price is
I'll go buy from someone honest.

[Tim Wescott]

The biggest board I've done to date is four size B pages, and they're not
crowded.

Since my strengths are primarily systems, and then software, and since
I'm mostly at the "jack of all trades" level for circuit design*, if I
were working on something bigger I'd hire a guy to do layout and maintain
the PCB design (which, in fact, is what I did with the four-page board,
to the advantage of me, my board guy, and my customer).

* Except I think I'm better than average at analog circuits that require
a knowledge of feedback loops -- 'cuz the feedback loop part of things
stands square in the middle of my real expertise.

[Jon Elson]

Tim Wescott wrote:

> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>

Well, I use Protel 99SE, the previous generation of the Altium
software. The only major thing I think Altium Designer adds
is better support of channelized designs. I have some schemes of
global editing that make these not TOO painful with P99.
I got my version for $2K by buying an old license from a guy
in the Netherlands and then buying the upgrade to P99SE.
Altium seems to BE really flexible on pricing, and you may be
able to wheedle a discount. Or, you might be able to buy a license
that is not being used, and was not used as the basis for an
upgrade. P99SE runs well on Win2K and XP, and I run it under those
OS's using VMware under a Linux host OS. P99SE is about the only
Windows software I still use.

But, even P99SE is light years ahead of the hobby-level board/schematic
packages. The global editing is VERY powerful, and the design rule
checking is somthing I truly trust!

Jon

[frederik...@gmail.com]

Well, it's a misconception. If you are using Altium and not sharing it, it's a matter of a few clicks to lock the license to the PC which then works with or without internet connection

Cheers

Klaus

[Joerg]

Is it easy to port that license to another PC without Internet connection?

[TTman]

On 03/04/2014 00:51, Tim Wescott wrote:
> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>

Unless you're doing 18 layer boards etc, try DIPTRACE... cheap, simple
effective. Licence free for 200/300 pins so easy to get going and see if
you like it. I use Client 3.2 ( predecessor of Altium) but it won't run
on win7.I tried Altium... what a nightmare... but I suppose if you
persevere it would get easier.

[Tim Williams]

"Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message

news:bq5t2b...@mid.individual.net...

>> Well, it's a misconception. If you are using Altium and not sharing
>> it, it's a matter of a few clicks to lock the license to the PC which
>> then works with or without internet connection
>>
>
> Is it easy to port that license to another PC without Internet
> connection?

As I recall, that type of license is not node locked.

For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people
use it at all. Even ameteurs because there's a free version. They whine
all day! Let alone actually doing any real work in it. Almost as bad as
gEDA!

No one should have to put up with that. As soon as I have enough,
investment shall we say, I'll buy an Altium license in a heartbeat.

'Long as we're talking about EDA, don't do PADS. I tried it once. It's
priced fully double what Altium is, and isn't worth half the price. I'd
use something cheap like Multisim before using that, or anything else
Mentor Graphics.

[Joerg]

Tim Williams wrote:
> "Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:bq5t2b...@mid.individual.net...
>>> Well, it's a misconception. If you are using Altium and not sharing
>>> it, it's a matter of a few clicks to lock the license to the PC which
>>> then works with or without internet connection
>>>
>> Is it easy to port that license to another PC without Internet
>> connection?
>
> As I recall, that type of license is not node locked.
>
> For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people
> use it at all. Even ameteurs because there's a free version. They whine
> all day! Let alone actually doing any real work in it. Almost as bad as
> gEDA!
>

Well, I am using Eagle since 10 years and it works nicely for me. The
only real gripe I have about it is the lack of a hierarchy but it seems
they (finally!) woke up now.

And yeah, I do real work on it. Like a hotrod RF thingamagic right now.
Lots of unorthodox switchers, too. To my surprise several of my newer
clients are also using Eagle which, of course, makes cooperation really
easy.

A couple of years ago I compared and test-drove numerous CAD packages.
None of them made me as happy as I was with old Orcad-SDT. So I stuck
with Eagle. Once they introduce a hierarchy that might as well be for
life because changing CAD librarier is a major pain.

> No one should have to put up with that. As soon as I have enough,
> investment shall we say, I'll buy an Altium license in a heartbeat.
>
> 'Long as we're talking about EDA, don't do PADS. I tried it once. It's
> priced fully double what Altium is, and isn't worth half the price. I'd
> use something cheap like Multisim before using that, or anything else
> Mentor Graphics.
>

My layouter uses PADS since forever and so does John Larkin's company,
and many clients of mine. They are all quite happy with it.

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Am 03.04.2014 16:41, schrieb Joerg:

> Chris Jones wrote:

>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>
>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>> whilst I was working with it.
>
>
> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
> software for me.

Serious BS.

My Altium Designer runs happily in a XP virtual machine under Linux Mint
16 and VMware, together with Modelsim, Xilinx, the DG8SAQ VNWA,
Sigasi, what else. The Internet connection of the virtual machine
is usually switched off, only Xilinx wants to call home for every
error message.

I can easily move the VM from my workstation to the laptop and even
_running_ simulations can continue there. At the moment I'm in a
hotel room in Munich and could do productive work, if it wasn't for
s.e.d :-)

Altium said they would not support me running it on a virtual machine
(had some performance problems with design files on network-connected
partitions) but me running it on a VM was OK. I asked b4 I bought it.
Methinks they put a lot of trust on me, I could abuse it easily.

C.J. probably has no license of his own but lends it from his
client over the internet from case to case.

regards, Gerhard

[Tim Williams]

Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com

"Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message

news:bq693h...@mid.individual.net...

> A couple of years ago I compared and test-drove numerous CAD packages.
> None of them made me as happy as I was with old Orcad-SDT. So I stuck
> with Eagle. Once they introduce a hierarchy that might as well be for
> life because changing CAD librarier is a major pain.

That being one of the major complaints, libraries. Creating symbols and
footprints is a snap in Altium. For a simple part, a few minutes, and
that includes simple 3D data (even better, if you have a STEP model of the
thing). Or if you're lazy, you can even use the IPC compliant footprint
generator (and pretty it up by hand, or use it as-is).

[Chris Jones]

On 04/04/2014 02:53, Tim Williams wrote:
> "Joerg" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:bq5a91...@mid.individual.net...
>>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>>
>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about
>>> Kicad.
>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>> whilst I was working with it.
>>
>>
>> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
>> software for me.
>
> If you have the license file, you can download the Altium License Server
> so that your computer literally phones home to itself to check that the
> license is there.
>
> There are also check-out-able licenses that only have to phone home every
> day or a few, or whatever.
>
> Tim
>

There was some incompatibility between one of their licence server
things and Windows 7 iirc, and I had stopped using XP by then.

Yes I eventually got it sorted out, but it seemed very rude of Altium to
put me through that (using up several hours of otherwise billable time),
when I know that some people use the pirated DVD and experience none of
that crap. If I were Altium then I would always want people who pay for
my product to get a better service than those who use it illegally.

Chris

[Chris Jones]

Yes, initially I did this, so the client could also run Altium. Now it
is setup so I can run it without internet, but it wasted several hours
of my time that a pirate user of Altium (or any user of open source
tools) would not have had to waste.

Chris

[Tim Williams]

"Chris Jones" <lugn...@spam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:533e17a9$0$16068$862e...@ngroups.net...

> There was some incompatibility between one of their licence server
> things and Windows 7 iirc, and I had stopped using XP by then.

I've used both on Win7 without much trouble. Does seem to be written for
XP; the only 'gotcha' I found was, a fresh install of Win7 has desktop
scale set to 125%, which is simply ignored by the layouts of many
un-resizable dialogs, making buttons and such inaccessible.

> Yes I eventually got it sorted out, but it seemed very rude of Altium to
> put me through that (using up several hours of otherwise billable time),
> when I know that some people use the pirated DVD and experience none of
> that crap. If I were Altium then I would always want people who pay for
> my product to get a better service than those who use it illegally.

Free software may yet rule the day, but it has a long way to go. Vote
Piraten Partei? :^)

[Klaus Kragelund]

I cannot remember. But you can just port it to the PC when you have the internet connection. (if in a bind, use your phone for the internet connection, not much data is transferred)

Cheers

Klaus

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2014 00:08:59 -0700 (PDT), Klaus Kragelund
<klau...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>I cannot remember. But you can just port it to the PC when you have the internet connection. (if in a bind, use your phone for the internet connection, not much data is transferred)
>
>Cheers
>
>Klaus

I can't imagine doing much schematic or PCB design without an Internet
connection. Usually with a LOT Of windows open.

The license checkout feature is quite decent. It's only a hassle when
someone in a group forgets to return it, but the **$R#$s will do that
with physical tools too.

[Joerg]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Apr 2014 00:08:59 -0700 (PDT), Klaus Kragelund
> <klau...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I cannot remember. But you can just port it to the PC when you have
>> the internet connection. (if in a bind, use your phone for the
>> internet connection, not much data is transferred)
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Klaus
>
> I can't imagine doing much schematic or PCB design without an
> Internet connection. Usually with a LOT Of windows open.
>

I've done a serious pulse receiver design for an ultrasound system on
the train from Cologne to Ulm. No Internet. By the time the train rolled
into Ulm Main Station a large chunk of it was completed.

In my case >50% of designs usually consist of SPICE simulations and
there Internet access rarely matters. For example, you can use a
somewhat similar RF transistor and then download the real model when you
have Internet connection again. But not being able to draw a schematic
would drive me up the wall because this is often done in parallel, in
another window.

> The license checkout feature is quite decent. It's only a hassle when
> someone in a group forgets to return it, but the **$R#$s will do
> that with physical tools too.
>

Does it work across borders? Or even oceans?

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:42:10 -0700, Joerg <inv...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>
>
>Does it work across borders? Or even oceans?

It would depend on how you set up the license server. Usually the
license server is only visible on the LAN, but I'm sure any competent
IT person could (maybe even I could) set up a secure VPN to tunnel
through the firewall. You'd probably want that anyway if you're doing
real development work at multiple sites or off-site.

--sp

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:42:10 -0700, Joerg <inv...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>

>In my case >50% of designs usually consist of SPICE simulations and
>there Internet access rarely matters. For example, you can use a
>somewhat similar RF transistor and then download the real model when you
>have Internet connection again. But not being able to draw a schematic
>would drive me up the wall because this is often done in parallel, in
>another window.

I like to augment the database with all the information from every
part that is used, and not put that work off until later. That way
everything that can be controlled at the schematic stage is
controlled. Layout goes very quickly when that work is done up front.
The BOM including part cost can be automatically generated. Datasheets
are linked. Orders can be uploaded to Digikey so they come back with
the PCB part designators printed on the bags (saves a lot of time for
prototyping).

Simply changing a capacitor from X7R to X5R would require Internet
access to create the database entry. As would changing to another
transistor that I don't happen to have the footprint or SPICE model
for already.

Here's a typical (autoloaded from supplier) database entry for a part.
I actually add a couple custom fields and there is often more than one
supplier listed. Of course the in-house-standard footprint (or
footprints if there are options such as high/low density) for that
exact manufacturer's part nummber with STEP file 3D body model gets
attached as well as the SPICE model for simulation.

http://i.imgur.com/AfzwfYq.png

It sounds like you're talking about working at a much earlier stage in
the design when things are a bit more abstract. At that stage, I don't
see much point in involving a full EDA suite- the overhead is pretty
high.

--sp

[Joerg]

I've had a support group from a major and very reputable IT company
trying to get that going for me. All in all it cost me almost 10h and it
did not work. I did not bill my client for that time but it sure was
aggravating. So I like to keep things simple, and Eagle does keep it
simple. Installation on a new PC takes less than five minutes and there
is no fuss with license servers.

[Joerg]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:42:10 -0700, Joerg <inv...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> In my case >50% of designs usually consist of SPICE simulations and
>> there Internet access rarely matters. For example, you can use a
>> somewhat similar RF transistor and then download the real model when you
>> have Internet connection again. But not being able to draw a schematic
>> would drive me up the wall because this is often done in parallel, in
>> another window.
>
> I like to augment the database with all the information from every
> part that is used, and not put that work off until later. That way
> everything that can be controlled at the schematic stage is
> controlled. Layout goes very quickly when that work is done up front.
> The BOM including part cost can be automatically generated. Datasheets
> are linked. Orders can be uploaded to Digikey so they come back with
> the PCB part designators printed on the bags (saves a lot of time for
> prototyping).
>

That's nice if the CAD can do all this. Eagle can as well but I believe
it only has purchase linking to Farnell which isn't useful for me. My
default source is Digikey.

> Simply changing a capacitor from X7R to X5R would require Internet
> access to create the database entry. As would changing to another
> transistor that I don't happen to have the footprint or SPICE model
> for already.
>

That is not so good. I can change such attributes sans Internet. Of
course, a new SPICE does require at least email access. In general I
prefer as much as possible to reside on the very PC where the design
happens and not on some distant server. On the road I either copy
libraries and such over to the netbook or carry that on a USB stick.

> Here's a typical (autoloaded from supplier) database entry for a part.
> I actually add a couple custom fields and there is often more than one
> supplier listed. Of course the in-house-standard footprint (or
> footprints if there are options such as high/low density) for that
> exact manufacturer's part nummber with STEP file 3D body model gets
> attached as well as the SPICE model for simulation.
>
> http://i.imgur.com/AfzwfYq.png
>
> It sounds like you're talking about working at a much earlier stage in
> the design when things are a bit more abstract. At that stage, I don't
> see much point in involving a full EDA suite- the overhead is pretty
> high.
>

I don't do layouts because it is more cost efficient to farm that out,
plus pro-layouters are always in touch with the latest and greatest fab
capabilities. All I do is occasionally prescribe how to place and route
very hot RF paths.

At the schematics stage selecting the right parts or creating the
library entries is crucial. Also a link to the simulator and I believe
Eagle now has an LTSpice link, I just haven't yet heard from anyone how
well that works.

Footprints in my case are mostly placeholders because layouters
generally use other CAD systems. Even clients that use Eagle have their
own preferred footprints so it wouldn't make much sense for me to spend
a lot of time on that.

[Neon John]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2014 16:56:43 -0500, "Tim Williams"
<tmor...@charter.net> wrote:


>For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people
>use it at all. Even ameteurs because there's a free version. They whine
>all day! Let alone actually doing any real work in it. Almost as bad as
>gEDA!

Nothing is worse than gEDA!!!!!

Eagle is awful when you first encounter it. I loaded and deleted it
about 3 or 4 times before I finally spent some time with it as part of
my evaluation of PCB CAD packages for our company.

The key is, you have to learn to think like a German which is very
very different than the rest of the world. Once that's done, Eagle is
quite easy to use and one can be very productive. There are very few
features that I have ever desired that Eagle doesn't have. Library
management is probably the worst aspect. For what I'm doing I'm quite
satisfied with Eagle.

I very much want to see KiCAD come up to professional standards and
with the corporate backing, it probably will. My only problem is that
we have so much intellectual property in Eagle format that I'm kinda
tied to it.

>
>No one should have to put up with that. As soon as I have enough,
>investment shall we say, I'll buy an Altium license in a heartbeat.

Gad, I couldn't imagine using anything with that kind of copy
protection. Ughhhh.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.fluxeon.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

[Bill Martin]

On 04/04/2014 12:59 PM, Neon John wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Apr 2014 16:56:43 -0500, "Tim Williams"
> <tmor...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>
>> For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people
>> use it at all. Even ameteurs because there's a free version. They whine
>> all day! Let alone actually doing any real work in it. Almost as bad as
>> gEDA!
>
> Nothing is worse than gEDA!!!!!
>
> Eagle is awful when you first encounter it. I loaded and deleted it
> about 3 or 4 times before I finally spent some time with it as part of
> my evaluation of PCB CAD packages for our company.
>
> The key is, you have to learn to think like a German which is very
> very different than the rest of the world.

yep, must be that inverted grammar thing, had the same observation.
At least it's not RPN...

Once that's done, Eagle is
> quite easy to use and one can be very productive. There are very few
> features that I have ever desired that Eagle doesn't have. Library
> management is probably the worst aspect. For what I'm doing I'm quite
> satisfied with Eagle.
>
> I very much want to see KiCAD come up to professional standards and
> with the corporate backing, it probably will. My only problem is that
> we have so much intellectual property in Eagle format that I'm kinda
> tied to it.
>

Are you on V6.x version? Those files are all ascii, XML syntax. A parser
could be done to translate to most any format you have a definition
for...and that's the problem, most are proprietary.

Curious: anyone have any comments on "Fritzing"? Another German thing,
but free to use and also XML based.

-bill

[Joe Chisolm]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 18:51:43 -0500, Tim Wescott wrote:

> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>
> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>
> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>
> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>
> I think I may stick with Eagle.

I got a email today from Altium. Starting July 1 the pricing for a
stand alone license for Designer (capture/cad/sim) is $9,245

Lot of really nice features like multiple grids on a board, polar
grids, etc. A lot of money for things I wont be using (at least
for now)

--
Chisolm
Republic of Texas

[Joerg]

Tell them to count me out :-)

[Spehro Pefhany]

Polar grids sound nice, but we haven't bothered upgrading to the
latest version. Last couple times I had to do a polar layout (rare!) I
just made a spreadsheet and entered the coordinates in manually.

The new rigid-flex features do sound interesting.

I think that at the ~10K price and with the feature set and learning
curve they have, it's not going to appeal much to the occasional user.
I think if you use it less than a 10% of the time (a few hours a week)
you're going to find it cumbersome and somewhat expensive. And there
are alternatives that are just cumbersome. ;-)

[rickman]

On 4/3/2014 10:41 AM, Joerg wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:

>> On 03/04/2014 10:51, Tim Wescott wrote:
>>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>>
>>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>>
>>> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>>
>>> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>>>
>>> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>>>
>>

>> I use Altium though my client paid for it so I don't know the exact
>> number. It was in the range that others have suggested.
>>
>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>> whilst I was working with it.
>
>
> Seriously? A lock-out if no Internet? That would instantly blacklist a
> software for me.

Same thing happens with Thunderbird... it can go whacky until the
connection is restored.

--

Rick

[John Devereux]

akrau...@gmail.com writes:

> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep
> in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how
> much misinformation is found on these forums.

You are replying to a post a year and a half old (which you snipped)...

It is around $10k US, about £7k in the UK when first year maintenance is
included.

AIUI:

There are various kinds of licensing system. There is a floating one
which does require internet connection but lets anyone use it anywhere
as long as two people do not want to use it at the same time.

Then there is a "stand-alone" type which is a license file that can be
moved from machine to machine. This does not need an internet
connection.




--

John Devereux

[Syd Rumpo]

On 22/09/2015 03:32, akrau...@gmail.com wrote:
> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how much misinformation is found on these forums.

I often use Altium, but not from choice. It's not very user-friendly
and makes simple things complicated.

I suspect it benefits from the old, "Nobody got sacked for buying IBM"
trope, and of course, people will always defend their decision if
they've spent a lot of money.


Cheers
--
Syd

[John Devereux]

Syd Rumpo <use...@nononono.co.uk> writes:

> On 22/09/2015 03:32, akrau...@gmail.com wrote:
>> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep
>> in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how
>> much misinformation is found on these forums.
>
> I often use Altium, but not from choice. It's not very user-friendly
> and makes simple things complicated.

Yeah, I just bought it for my company and I am still deeply ambivalent
about it. Kicad is *so* close now, and it looks like it is on a really
good path for the future.

> I suspect it benefits from the old, "Nobody got sacked for buying IBM"
> trope, and of course, people will always defend their decision if
> they've spent a lot of money.

Yes I think so. Although for me it's pretty much my money...


--

John Devereux

[Oltimer]

On 22-Sep-15 10:32 AM, akrau...@gmail.com wrote:
> You should contact Altium. They will put you in touch with sales rep in your territory. I work for Altium and can't begin to tell you how much misinformation is found on these forums.
>

IIRC - Last year it was about $12k Australian for a single seat.

We didn't buy!

[John Larkin]

One thing about EDA software is that the price is very negotiable,
especially if you want more than one seat. For a half dozen, offer
them half price. For hundreds of seats, I've been told that prices can
be ten per cent of list.

[Jon Elson]

rickman wrote:


>>> I also use Kicad, and to be honest I prefer a lot of things about Kicad.
>>> The first thing was all of the licence server shit that I had to go
>>> through just to use Altium, then it would nag me literally about every
>>> 20 seconds before locking me out if my internet connection went down
>>> whilst I was working with it.

I use Protel 99SE, and it is pretty good. There are a few well-known bugs,
and it is pretty easy to avoid triggering them. The design rules check
(including layout vs. schematic) seems bulletproof. I've done maybe 300
boards with it. Not sure what Altium Designer offers, other than making
channelized designs a bit easier.

A guy sent me a Kicad design, and I tried it. While it works, I think it
has a LONG way to go to even match Protel 99SE. But, it really shows
promise, so I am hoping it at least gets close. I don't know how much longer
I can keep P99SE working. It does work fine on XP under a virtual machine.

Maybe it is just my vast unfamiliarity with Kicad, and most of what I need
really is already in there. But, it seemed to require a LOT of clicking on
icons, where I usually use keyboard shortcuts in P99SE. I have created a
bunch of my own custom key bindings in P99SE, put common objects on the
schematic toolbars, etc.

Jon

[rickman]

On 4/4/2014 3:59 PM, Neon John wrote:
>
> I very much want to see KiCAD come up to professional standards and
> with the corporate backing, it probably will. My only problem is that
> we have so much intellectual property in Eagle format that I'm kinda
> tied to it.

So what about KiCAD is lacking?

--

Rick

[rickman]

Why Eagle rather than any of the many open source packages?

--

Rick

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

Den fredag den 4. april 2014 kl. 21.59.40 UTC+2 skrev Neon John:
> On Thu, 3 Apr 2014 16:56:43 -0500, "Tim Williams"
> <tmor...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>
> >For all the bitching and whining I hear about Eagle, I'm astonished people
> >use it at all. Even ameteurs because there's a free version. They whine
> >all day! Let alone actually doing any real work in it. Almost as bad as
> >gEDA!
>
> Nothing is worse than gEDA!!!!!
>
> Eagle is awful when you first encounter it. I loaded and deleted it
> about 3 or 4 times before I finally spent some time with it as part of
> my evaluation of PCB CAD packages for our company.
>
> The key is, you have to learn to think like a German which is very
> very different than the rest of the world. Once that's done, Eagle is
> quite easy to use and one can be very productive. There are very few
> features that I have ever desired that Eagle doesn't have. Library
> management is probably the worst aspect. For what I'm doing I'm quite
> satisfied with Eagle.
>
> I very much want to see KiCAD come up to professional standards and
> with the corporate backing, it probably will. My only problem is that
> we have so much intellectual property in Eagle format that I'm kinda
> tied to it.
>

I've been playing with the latest Kicad http://kicad-pcb.org/download/
and it seems very good, the new interactive router is like magic

I think kicad can import almost everything eagle

-Lasse

[rickman]

On 4/3/2014 7:30 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
>
> I can easily move the VM from my workstation to the laptop and even
> _running_ simulations can continue there. At the moment I'm in a
> hotel room in Munich and could do productive work, if it wasn't for
> s.e.d :-)

Yeah, that durn s.e.d!

> Altium said they would not support me running it on a virtual machine
> (had some performance problems with design files on network-connected
> partitions) but me running it on a VM was OK. I asked b4 I bought it.
> Methinks they put a lot of trust on me, I could abuse it easily.

I guess I'm new to this. What is the difference between a "virtual
machine" and a "VM"? I thought a VM *was* a virtual machine???

--

Rick

[rickman]

On 4/4/2014 12:33 AM, Tim Williams wrote:
> "Chris Jones" <lugn...@spam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:533e17a9$0$16068$862e...@ngroups.net...
>> There was some incompatibility between one of their licence server
>> things and Windows 7 iirc, and I had stopped using XP by then.
>
> I've used both on Win7 without much trouble. Does seem to be written for
> XP; the only 'gotcha' I found was, a fresh install of Win7 has desktop
> scale set to 125%, which is simply ignored by the layouts of many
> un-resizable dialogs, making buttons and such inaccessible.
>
>> Yes I eventually got it sorted out, but it seemed very rude of Altium to
>> put me through that (using up several hours of otherwise billable time),
>> when I know that some people use the pirated DVD and experience none of
>> that crap. If I were Altium then I would always want people who pay for
>> my product to get a better service than those who use it illegally.
>
> Free software may yet rule the day, but it has a long way to go. Vote
> Piraten Partei? :^)

So what is wrong with KiCAD?

--

Rick

[rickman]

On 4/3/2014 1:14 PM, sms wrote:

> On 4/2/2014 4:51 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
>> So, I've been looking over a few shoulders lately and seeing Altium on
>> screens, and thinking maybe I should move away from EagleCAD.
>>
>> I looked on the Altium web site for pricing, and they're one of those
>> "hand us one of your testicles and we'll tell you how much you need to
>> pay to buy our product" sort of companies.
>>
>> I just want a budgetary price for buying one seat in the US.
>>
>> Anyone use it? Have a recent version? Know how much it costs?
>>
>> I think I may stick with Eagle.
>

> It's very difficult to get a straight answer out of Altium.
>
> Stick with Eagle. We are transitioning from KiCad to Eagle. KiCad is
> okay but there are some PCB things that are difficult or impossible to
> do with KiCad that are easy to do with Eagle. Try doing a PCB inductor
> with a spiral coil on KiCad!

Why is that so hard? What else is difficult with KiCAD?

--

Rick

[John Devereux]

I found a few things, some niggles but some more serious (but it may be
just that I did not find the best way). Some examples:

* It was too hard to create a footprint that was exactly what I
wanted. You could get close quickly enough, but getting things
exactly right seemed difficult. I was spending hours getting awkard
irregular parts (like connectors) exactly right.

* At the time the libraries were very fragmented and I did not like
the way most of the footprints were done. For example silk screen
outlines going over the pads.

* I believe the design rule checking is incomplete, there are some
constructs that are not checked properly.

* vias are not "first class objects". It is hard to just sprinkle a
thermal vias around a pour or a thermal tab say. They have to be
routed as part of a net first and I think they can get removed or
cause DRC errors. There is some workaround where they are created as
individual "components".

* 3D support is limited, there was no easy path to add a step file of
the component to its definition and no easy way to export a step
file of the finished PCB. (But now there is a nice script for export
using other free tools).

BUT some of the features are extremely powerful, checkout the new
routing features. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irqlrVUbjuQ>,
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCG4daPvuVI>.

It seems to be on a great path for the future. I have been following the
developers list and all the changes made and proposed and the general
direction look good. Altium development seems to be more focussed on
cosmetics and subscription lock-in and extracting yet more money for
paid add-ons.

Kicad is cross-platform, 64-bit and written in screaming fast
C++. AFAICT Altium is 32-bit only and I gather it consists of 15 million
lines of object pascal dating back to the the 80's. Good luck rewriting
that... There are important bugs going back years and for me it crashes
several times a day. Sometimes I think they just add more and more stuff
around a core that they no longer understand.

Kicad Development has been boosted recently with major and ongoing
contributions from CERN.

<http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/02/kicad-software-gets-cern-treatment>

There is a major new release due real soon now (until recently you had
to build from source to get anything not ancient).

--

John Devereux

[rickman]

I'm on the KiCAD user mailing list as I am expecting to convert to it
for my next project. They are all talking about the new release which
seems to be out, but I'm not sure it is the actual "stable" release or a
trial version before the official release.

I read about a *lot* of issues people have with the product, but they
all seem to be little things with easy fixes/work arounds. Some of the
posts here seem to say KiCAD is not ready for prime time, but no one has
given any real details that can be evaluated, or the problems are rather
old and seem to have been fixed. As you say, CERN is pushing the
software and making major contributions to the development. So today's
KiCAD is likely not much like the KiCAD of a few years ago.

--

Rick

[John Devereux]

It is RC1, a "release candidate". I.e. it is a trial version. It is
still probably the best version to install rather than the actual
previous "released" version which is a few years old and missing a lot
of the good stuff. I would expect it to be generally compatible with the
to-be-released version when it appears.

> I read about a *lot* of issues people have with the product, but they
> all seem to be little things with easy fixes/work arounds. Some of
> the posts here seem to say KiCAD is not ready for prime time, but no
> one has given any real details that can be evaluated

I did my best but it was last Christmas and my memory is not great.

>, or the problems are rather old and seem to have been fixed. As you
>say, CERN is pushing the software and making major contributions to the
>development. So today's KiCAD is likely not much like the KiCAD of a
>few years ago.

I was evaluating the bleeding edge version as of ~9 months ago so it is
close but should be more polished now.

It is pretty good as-is. The best open-source solution and better than
many commercial offerings including what I was using. There definitely
are people using it professionally for non-trivial projects and it is
only going to improve with time.


--

John Devereux

[Robert Loos]

Am 23.09.2015 um 17:06 schrieb rickman:

> Why is that so hard? What else is difficult with KiCAD?

You cannot draw polygons in copper or use them as a footprint. (not even
circles or ellipsoids, I believe).
The way they created the center pad in SOT89 is, well...

I could not figure out how to draw complex board outlines (with slots,
segments of a circle etc) and how to draw exact lines (like 47.7mm to
the left, arc 45°, r=5, 10.2mm up, ...). There seems no way to make an
arc part of a polygon at all.

You cannot trust the library. In my first test, the 7493 had no ground
contact due to an error in the schematic library.

Kicad has impressive features (length tuning, differential pairs, the
calculator is great!) but also big deficits. Too many to use it for
professional work.

Also, the installation process for me was lengthy. There are no
instructions. I don't know where the libraries are (footprints seem to
be on the Internet only). The schematic libraries are in the program
directory! No idea how to move them to a network share. I nearly gave up
before I had a running version.
Under 'Settings', I find only three paths to modify. Two of them point
to directories that do not exist on my PC.
Would it have been so much effort to make a clean installer that really
works?

Cheers

Robert

[Jon Elson]

Robert Loos wrote:

> Am 23.09.2015 um 17:06 schrieb rickman:
>
>> Why is that so hard? What else is difficult with KiCAD?
>
> You cannot draw polygons in copper or use them as a footprint. (not even
> circles or ellipsoids, I believe).

Wow, that sounds serious. I've done a little poking around with Kicad, and
did generate the gerber files for a project that another guy designed in it.

How do you do SMT pads, then?

Thanks,

Jon

[Frank Miles]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:44:50 +0200, Robert Loos wrote:

> Am 23.09.2015 um 17:06 schrieb rickman:
>
>> Why is that so hard? What else is difficult with KiCAD?
>
> You cannot draw polygons in copper or use them as a footprint. (not even
> circles or ellipsoids, I believe).

I've generated footprints with circular pads. Mostly by using the
python script available here:
http://dlharmon.com/geda/footgen.html

> [snip]

> I could not figure out how to draw complex board outlines (with slots,
> segments of a circle etc) and how to draw exact lines (like 47.7mm to
> the left, arc 45°, r=5, 10.2mm up, ...). There seems no way to make an
> arc part of a polygon at all.

There's a crude way of doing it, setting the grid and making careful use
of the mouse. I completely agree that that's a crappy workaround - the
user interface could (and should) enable exact placement of board outlines.

> You cannot trust the library. In my first test, the 7493 had no ground
> contact due to an error in the schematic library.

I've never seen a part library yet that could be "trusted", especially when
it comes to ground and power connections.

> Kicad has impressive features (length tuning, differential pairs, the
> calculator is great!) but also big deficits. Too many to use it for
> professional work.
>
> Also, the installation process for me was lengthy. There are no
> instructions. I don't know where the libraries are (footprints seem to
> be on the Internet only). The schematic libraries are in the program
> directory! No idea how to move them to a network share. I nearly gave up
> before I had a running version.
> Under 'Settings', I find only three paths to modify. Two of them point
> to directories that do not exist on my PC.
> Would it have been so much effort to make a clean installer that really
> works?

I look forward to improved installation procedures as well. I haven't used
their schematic editor, only PCBnew and associated footprint handling sfwr.

We tried Altium. Struggled with the license manager issues, which despite
their tech support were a serious pain. Struggled with importing old Protel
designs. In the end (of the evaluation period) we were unconvinced that it
was worth the pain, suffering, huge learning curve, and unknown future
uncertainties (i.e. subscription model). Of course, none of us do layout
as our primary activity.

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

you can't draw pads free hand, but you can place pads that are rectangular,trapezoidal,round or oval of what ever size you like and
you can make multiple pads with the same number to get them connected
so it is possible to piece together almost any shape

-Lasse

[Reinhardt Behm]

Sometimes it is even easier to use a text editor and directly edit the KiCAD
files. One big advantage is that this files are pure ASCII text and their
format is documented and clear enough by itself without consulting the
documentation.
I have done such things with old OrCAD which had an text export/import
function but with KiCAD it is even simpler.
Some things are often done more effective using a text editor than using all
that pointy-clicky GUI stuff.

Real engineers don't need no f..g GUI. :-)

--
Reinhardt

[David Brown]

I used to do that a bit with Protel files (saved in ASCII format, rather
than binary format). Sometimes for very big components I would copy the
datasheets pin tables from the pdf, and use a bit of python scripting to
produce a schematic library list of all the pins with the right names
and numbers. I'd use the gui to lay out the pins in a nice way, but the
scripting ensured that every pin was accurate without having to manually
point-and-click for them all.

[Robert Loos]

Am 24.09.2015 um 21:40 schrieb Frank Miles:
...

> I've never seen a part library yet that could be "trusted", especially when
> it comes to ground and power connections.

You're right. Indeed, the Libraries I'm working with I've created (in
Orcad and Bartels Auto Engineer) nearly 100% myself but that was a
process over decades.
Doing all this again is a big barrier, although probably the best solution.

...

> I look forward to improved installation procedures as well. I haven't used
> their schematic editor, only PCBnew and associated footprint handling sfwr.

btw. the best and most productive feature I've seen in a schematic
editor is in LTspice. You can place your parts and then draw wires just
across them. At first it looks as if you produced a single big short
circuit but if you end the wire, all short circuits are removed! Also,
if you put a part over an existing wire, the piece of wire 'inside' the
part is removed. I love it. I don't know why other editors don't work
like this.

>
> We tried Altium. Struggled with the license manager issues, which despite

Same thing in Orcad. I believe they put more work in their license
manager than in the real program... and they pay more attention that
guys without a license can't use it than that guys with a license can. I
would not buy it again but I've grown up with it.

> their tech support were a serious pain. Struggled with importing old Protel
> designs. In the end (of the evaluation period) we were unconvinced that it
> was worth the pain, suffering, huge learning curve, and unknown future
> uncertainties (i.e. subscription model). Of course, none of us do layout
> as our primary activity.

A working import is a rare thing. I tried the tool Kicad mentions
somewhere to import an Orcad schematic library. Starting with a 600k
library it produced a file with more than 100MB which of course did not
work...
I do not think of importing complete designs but the libraries would be
nice :-)

Cheers

Robert

[Oltimer]

This was for a small company with 1-1/2 users. We saved our dollars for
another day.

[rickman]

Real programmers don't need a computer monitor.

--

Rick

[Neon John]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux
<jo...@devereux.me.uk> wrote:


>Yeah, I just bought it for my company and I am still deeply ambivalent
>about it. Kicad is *so* close now, and it looks like it is on a really
>good path for the future.

Fully agree. My company has used Eagle for about 6 years but we're
transitioning to KiCAD. It's not quite there yet but it's soooo
close.

While on the topic of CAD, someone asked awhile back about mechanical
CAD. We're using Qcad. It's quite good and very Auto-CAD-like but I
recommend it only provisionally because it's basically gimp-ware. The
FOSS part is basically useless for anything more than drawing lines
and circles. One has to buy the proprietary add-ons to get actual
functionality like being able to do sophisticated things with
polylines and blocks.

Also someone asked about a good wiring diagram CAD package. I
discovered that QElectroTech is in the Ubuntu repository, albeit a
very old copy.

Here's the website.

http://qelectrotech.org/

Unfortunately the web site is in french. (Why anyone would not use
the universal language of the net [English] escapes me.) Some of the
English translations are a bit strange but it's a very usable package.
Last night I whipped out the cabinet wiring diagram for our next
product in just a couple of hours. Nice.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.fluxeon.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

[rickman]

On 9/25/2015 3:06 PM, Neon John wrote:
>
> Unfortunately the web site is in french. (Why anyone would not use
> the universal language of the net [English] escapes me.)

Because they're French?

--

Rick

[Bill Sloman]

The French do have this delusion that French ought to be the universal language.
The fact that it isn't a the moment is merely evidence of Anglo-Saxon perfidy.

In fact we'll all end speaking and writing Chinese as soon as the Chinese fix on one phoneme-based alphabet (and I know that English spelling isn't phonetic and we use 26 characters to encode rather more phonemes - 42 in British English. English spelling is actually phonetic, but we have six coding systems in play so it doesn't offer a great deal of practical help).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

[John Devereux]

Neon John <n...@never.com> writes:

> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux
> <jo...@devereux.me.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Yeah, I just bought it for my company and I am still deeply ambivalent
>>about it. Kicad is *so* close now, and it looks like it is on a really
>>good path for the future.
>
> Fully agree. My company has used Eagle for about 6 years but we're
> transitioning to KiCAD. It's not quite there yet but it's soooo
> close.

It seems like they have done a lot of really hard things - push and
shove routing, differential pair routing, length tuning, 3D viewing. But
things that should be trivial are missing or need awkward
work-arounds. Hopefully with the new release they will get a lot more
users and more real-world feedback and it will quickly shape up. (And it
is still possible that the issues I found are just me, there *are*
people using it professionally).

> While on the topic of CAD, someone asked awhile back about mechanical
> CAD. We're using Qcad. It's quite good and very Auto-CAD-like but I
> recommend it only provisionally because it's basically gimp-ware. The
> FOSS part is basically useless for anything more than drawing lines
> and circles. One has to buy the proprietary add-ons to get actual
> functionality like being able to do sophisticated things with
> polylines and blocks.

Hopefully the 3D printing / "maker community" craze will bring on the 3D
CAD programs.

> Also someone asked about a good wiring diagram CAD package. I
> discovered that QElectroTech is in the Ubuntu repository, albeit a
> very old copy.
>
> Here's the website.
>
> http://qelectrotech.org/

Cool. I usually abuse my PCB schematic editor for this, defining the
symbols I need manually etc. But it might be nice to have all the
symbols done for you already to some kind of standard.

> Unfortunately the web site is in french. (Why anyone would not use
> the universal language of the net [English] escapes me.)

English... the worlds' "lingua franca".


[...]

--

John Devereux

[Rob]

John Devereux <jo...@devereux.me.uk> wrote:
> Neon John <n...@never.com> writes:
>
>> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux
>> <jo...@devereux.me.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Yeah, I just bought it for my company and I am still deeply ambivalent
>>>about it. Kicad is *so* close now, and it looks like it is on a really
>>>good path for the future.
>>
>> Fully agree. My company has used Eagle for about 6 years but we're
>> transitioning to KiCAD. It's not quite there yet but it's soooo
>> close.
>
> It seems like they have done a lot of really hard things - push and
> shove routing, differential pair routing, length tuning, 3D viewing. But
> things that should be trivial are missing or need awkward
> work-arounds.

This is not untypical for open-source software. Some people even say
it is typical for open-source.

> Hopefully with the new release they will get a lot more
> users and more real-world feedback and it will quickly shape up. (And it
> is still possible that the issues I found are just me, there *are*
> people using it professionally).

It depends. For developers it is often more interesting to work on hard
problems or to innovate things than to solve mundane problems like
installation. So it is not surprising that those areas are lacking when
the project is not commercially managed.

[John Devereux]

I believe the installation process is going to get fixed. Up until a
couple of months ago getting a recent version required compilation from
source, with a difficult set of pre-requisites needed. They have just
now managed to get nightly binary installers up for Windows, Mac and
Linux. I think there are still issues e.g. to do with environment
variables needing to be set up but these will be fixed shortly I would
hope. This sort of thing is what having a RC is for.


--

John Devereux

[mixed nuts]

On 9/25/2015 3:06 PM, Neon John wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux
> <jo...@devereux.me.uk> wrote:
>
>
>> Yeah, I just bought it for my company and I am still deeply ambivalent
>> about it. Kicad is *so* close now, and it looks like it is on a really
>> good path for the future.
>
> Fully agree. My company has used Eagle for about 6 years but we're
> transitioning to KiCAD. It's not quite there yet but it's soooo
> close.
>
> While on the topic of CAD, someone asked awhile back about mechanical
> CAD. We're using Qcad. It's quite good and very Auto-CAD-like but I
> recommend it only provisionally because it's basically gimp-ware. The
> FOSS part is basically useless for anything more than drawing lines
> and circles. One has to buy the proprietary add-ons to get actual
> functionality like being able to do sophisticated things with
> polylines and blocks.
>

I've been using SolidEdge 2D - free, fully functional, parametric
modeling (change a dimension, relationships change according to
constraints you define).

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/solid-edge/free2d/index.shtml

Once a year (around this time - September) a new version is released and
your license key (a small text file) expires. The fix is to download the
new version or update the key. All you have to do is provide your info
so a salesman can contact you to see if you'd like to upgrade to the
pay-for 3D system.

There are tutorials etc. on the youtubes and in the documentation -
takes some practice to get all the horsepower into your fingertips.

There's only one piece missing that limits my happiness - the 3D system
has a magic helix/spiral function but not the 2D package - it's a bit
tedious to set up construction points to thread a spline for a spiral
inductor.

DWG and DXF can be exported - the hybrid RF/microwave substrate guys
have a path to happiness.

--
Grizzly H.

[rickman]

I have had no end of trouble with licenses expiring at very inconvenient
times. That is the main reason why I try to avoid them at all costs.

--

Rick

[mixed nuts]

There's actually a warning starting a week or two before expiration.
It'll ask you if you want an upgrade or just a new key - painless. ;)

--
Gr

[rickman]

That's great if you used the product in that week. I often don't use
CAD tools for weeks or even months at a time. I guess I should just get
used to tools requiring activation every time I want to use them, but I
don't.

I guess the process for this program is less painless than others. I
have started a new project on a Friday only to find I had to wait until
the next business day to get a new license which means I can't work over
the weekend, which I often do when working. FPGA tools are not very
license friendly.

--

Rick

[John Devereux]

It sounds like they can cut-off usage of the free product any time they
want to. In fact it *will* get cut-off when they get tired of running
the license server, change their product strategy, the product gets
bought out, etc.

Sounds a bit precarious, a CAD system is a big investment not just in
financial terms but in the time invested in learning it, the drawings,
developing libraries and templates etc.


--

John Devereux

[rickman]

I don't know what type of tools you use, I do VHDL design on FPGAs. The
only device specific investment is the pin out which is not compatible
between product lines much less brands. So either I use the tools for
that part or I redesign the PCB.

FPGA vendors won't drop their free tools. They would lose a lot of
customers and the free tools don't cost them much really.

--

Rick

[John Devereux]

Sorry, I was unclear. I was referring to the SolidEdge licensing not
your FPGA tools.

--

John Devereux

[mixed nuts]

On 9/28/2015 2:54 AM, John Devereux wrote:

I've been told that it's actually a very successful sales tool. Once a
year, the customer (or potential customer) reconnects with the company.
If said customer checks the "contact is OK" box, somebody will call.
Not much different from keeping a sales "tickler" file. Siemens
management seems to understand and support this. Maybe they came up
with the idea.

The license key is a local text file - no license server to connect to.
One person can put this file on a thumb drive or email it around.
Poof - everybody's good for another year.

Libraries and templates are always an issue. The pain is only weakly
related to the CAD package in use. I believe the pain is proportional
to the square of the number of engineers with write access to the
template directory.

--
Grizzly H.

[rickman]

Yes, I won't use proprietary CAD tools anymore. But even those are not
likely to cut off the free tools. Have any of the vendors done this?

--

Rick

[N. Coesel]

Op 09/27/2015 om 09:41 PM schreef mixed nuts:

I don't even buy/use that kind of software! Software must keep working
always.

[Phil Hobbs]

Yup. Windows-as-a-service--the jokes write themselves!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(Who is currently in bed with a cold, installing the Nth version of
Linux in a VirtualBox VM [hosted under Mint] to play with. Looks like
CentOS 7 LTS is a win.)

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

[tecf...@gmail.com]

I have a full commercial perpetual Altium Designer license to sell.

I am moving out of the country and will not be using it.

Please contact me for details.

Roger

four one nine six eight one two one four two leave message.

[mjb...@gmail.com]

How much did it sell?

[Winfield Hill]

mjb...@gmail.com wrote...

Probably worth %5k or more.


--
Thanks,
- Win

[JM]

Altium are offering a %40 discount at the moment (giving a sale price of
$5495) for users moving from Eagle.

In reality if you haggle with them a %40 discount is usually achievable
in any case.

[Neon John]

On 21 Feb 2017 14:18:08 -0800, Winfield Hill

Check Altium's website. They're offering a perpetual license version
to Eagle owners for about $5k with a year's support and maintenance.
Autodesk has effectively destroyed Eagle by going to a subscription
model and folks are piling on. My layout needs are modest so I've
moved to KiCAD.

John
John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com

http://www.tnduction.com

[vikram....@gmail.com]

>
> Check Altium's website. They're offering a perpetual license version
> to Eagle owners for about $5k with a year's support and maintenance.
> Autodesk has effectively destroyed Eagle by going to a subscription
> model and folks are piling on. My layout needs are modest so I've
> moved to KiCAD.
>

Has anyone experimented with Altium CircuitStudio? Seems like a "lite" version of Altium Designer. $995 for perpetual license, with a $150 subscription.

https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-73745?ICID=circuitstudio-topban

Feature comparison:
https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-76216/l/circuitstudio-by-altium-vs-altium-designer-feature-and-specification-comparison