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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Recommend a PCB Layout Tool for a newbie?
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| jdh2550 Regular Member  Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Just saw the DesignSpark thread... I'm interested in knowing what folks think is a good tool for a hobbyist such as me to learn for doing PCB layout? I've been playing in the microcontroller space for a number of years now (you can blame Arduino for that!) I want to go to the "next level" and design my own peripherals/shields/add-ons whatever. So, what's a good tool for me to use? I'm not looking to become an expert - just a proficient amateur. I was about to download Eagle, but now I see this option and I know there are others. So, what do you all think? Some questions about each option: 1) Is it easy to use? (i.e. do tutorials exist, is it well supported by the community) 2) Is it useful? (i.e. can I output all the files needed for a 2 or 4 layer board that would satisfy a PCB service like BatchPCB) 3) What does it cost? (i.e. free is good - but if it ain't going to do what I need is "free" a false economy?) 4) What questions should I be asking? Thanks! p.s. I'm sure this question has been posed before but don't scold me for starting over - it's a perennial question! |
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MicroBlocks Guru  Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
Diptrace! After download i was able to work with it within an hour. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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CircuitGizmos Guru Joined: 08/09/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 1421 |
I've tried Eagle and found it very clunky. Even after a LOT of effort. I gave PCB ARTIST a try and it was very intuitive. It is free. Go look at the page - you get a ton of features. Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite |
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| Greg Fordyce Senior Member  Joined: 16/09/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 153 |
I found DesignSpark easy to use, it would be a good choice for starting out, but it doesn't/didn't run on linux so now I use Kicad and am happy with it aside from the built in gerber viewer. For that I use Gerbview from the gEDA suite, also a linux app. I didn't get on well with Eagle and haven't tried Diptrace or PCB Artist. Try a few different programs and see which one suits you best. Greg |
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Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1211 |
I've tried eagle and a few others but now I only use Sprint Layout. I do find it is the easiest to use and one doesn't need part no.s etc to design a pcb. Sprint Layout also has Gerber output for cnc milling etc and I found doing a sim with Kellyware CNC it replicated perfectly Cheers Bryan. |
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| Ray B Senior Member Joined: 16/02/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 219 |
PCB Artist looks simple but although it can produce schematics (in sch format) and auto routes PCBs into pcb format it seems to be primarily released by the USA company Advanced Circuits as a tool to design boards for their PCB manufacture & supply business. don't know if it can produce Gerber files etc like say Eagle. Does not seem to have option to design single sided boards. Cheers RayB from Perth WA |
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| Ray B Senior Member Joined: 16/02/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 219 |
Further to my post below DipTrace & Eagle both provide excellent freeware downloads although slightly crippled in either the board size or number of pins BUT if your just wanting to trial the products this won't be a concern. The following link will be interesting although a bit out of date and both DipTrace & Eagle now have upgrades. View Poll Results: EAGLE or DipTrace? Read first post before voting http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?128576-EAGLE-or-Di pTrace/page2&s=8a513c400503a5b4c275902768151391 RayB from Perth WA |
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| isochronic Guru Joined: 21/01/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 689 |
Initially I used expressPCB as it was very easy. But it is a proprietary format, the idea being that expresspcb will make your pcbs for you at a (expensive) price, and it is thus not a general format. Now I use eagle which is more popular. The differences I found were not trivial but the extra features make up for the effort, as follows. The eagle dip IC libraries have standard IC pads whereas expresspcb has circles - much smaller - so if you have designed something cramped in expresspcb you may have to expand it. Eagle documentation gives the impression that you have to create a schematic before the pcb - I agree its a good practice - but you can easily bypass it and start a pcb layout anyway and this avoids the need to create components etc. The trace styles have a snap-to-angle feature which is great after you get the hang of it. The free version has a pcb size limit. Most pcb makers can use the output files. A flipped pcb can be printed easily for diy boards and there is a pdf output as well. |
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elproducts Senior Member Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 282 |
DipTrace seems to be popular but I haven't used it yet. This company in California; Bay Area Circuits is offering a free version built from diptrace that is limited to 4 layers and requires you to buy the first round of boards from them but then you get the gerbers for free. This is similar to ExpressPCB.com but you have to pay $60 to get the gerbers from ExpressPCB. Here is the info they sent me. PCB Creator - PCB Design Software Is your PCB Design software out of date? Maybe you have a side project that you need simple and easy design software for? The new PCB Creator is free pcb design software that will allow you to design up to a 4 layer PCB. It is based on the professional version of the popular DipTrace software and retains many of the pro features. It is one of the easiest PCB Design packages available today. You can use this for full feature PCB Designs for your company or maybe even for that side project you have been wanting to work on. The software includes instant quote and order from Bay Area Circuits. Visit our website to learn more and download it. www.PCBCreator.com www.elproducts.com |
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| JakeStew Newbie  Joined: 02/12/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 11 |
Without a doubt Eagle is the most powerful and commonly used schematic and PCB program. DesignSpark is also kind of interesting, but just didn't do what I needed. If you're serious use Eagle. All the other programs I've tried (I've tried most of them) you end up running into something it just can't do and you end up wasting all that time for nothing. That said, Eagle has a steep learning curve. The interface looks nice in many ways, but it is very clumsy in others. It's very hard to figure out, but once you do it's easily the best program out there, by far! Read some guides. SparkFun has a good one. There are quite a few tweaks and ULPs you need to make things work well. Simple things like cut-n-paste are done oddly in Eagle, you just have to learn these oddities and deal with them. Everybody uses Eagle, and despite the strange interface it is way more powerful than anything else out there. -Jake |
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| MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
Jake, that is just one opinion. For me eagle sukcs big time and i love diptrace. Before you are any good in eagle, you already made 10 schematics and pcb's in diptrace. For a beginner eagle is not really good, and from what i have heard eagle is not great for the bigger jobs. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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| CircuitGizmos Guru Joined: 08/09/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 1421 |
"Without a doubt Eagle is the most powerful and commonly used schematic and PCB program." "it's easily the best program out there, by far!" "Everybody uses Eagle, and despite the strange interface it is way more powerful than anything else out there." It is great that you have a strong opinion on the subject, but I just had to laugh at the absolutes that you state. Either you have very limited experience, or you think your opinion is fact. I personally spent a lot of time learning Eagle to get a few small projects done. Once I started using it for anything other than simple designs I regretted the time I wasted on it. Micromites and Maximites! - Beginning Maximite |
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BobD Guru Joined: 07/12/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 935 |
Jake seems to be a troll. He has moved in as a first timer and hit several threads with similar opinions. He is probably best ignored. |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2870 |
I will just add my two penneth worth here, I use Protel 99se and if you have never used it before I recommend you STAY away from it. It is too old so most new packages have to be created from the ground up.. It doesnt like WIndows 7 (cant open/save Libraries). There is a hack that sort of works. It is Very Clumsy to use. Why do I use it? Two reasons, My employer bought it, and still expects it to be used as our package (admittedly not used at work much except for re-doing old PCBs). Also as I have been `elected' to be our official `Protel man' I have to keep my hand in.. If you dont use it for a year or so you basically have to re-learn all the idiosyncrasies of the program. I mentioned this as a warning to look at other flavours if you are starting out.. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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OA47 Guru Joined: 11/04/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 911 |
Mick, I too have been using Protel for more years than I care to remember and have a few boards that I have to update occasionally so I have to get the brain around the program again. I do share your recomendations for new users to try something more recent and user friendly. Regards Graeme |
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palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1805 |
I've been using Circuit Wizard which is only a hobby tool. It doesn't rout well and the boards are always rather large with a lot of links and jumpers. I saw Diptrace mentioned and downloaded the free version. It can be rather complicated at first, but once I sorted out what I wanted it is fantastic. A hundred times better than what I was using. Thanks for mentioning it. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| elproducts Senior Member Joined: 19/06/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 282 |
Here are some decent free software versions. As I mentioned in a previous post. Bay Area Circuits offers a version of DIPTRACE called PCB Creator which is based on DIPTRACE (they must have bought a special license). They make you buy the first board from them so that's how they pay for the software. DIPTRACE offers a MAC version (which is hard to find in PCB layout software) which I really like since I mostly use my iMac but PCB Creator doesn't offer it yet. I've downloaded the free version from diptrace to try out. Another free software option is pad2pad.com they have a lot of decent board options including a thin flex board option. Again you have to buy the boards from them first. For a true beginner, I still think the easiest to use is expresspcb.com. This is the one I've used on most of my projects. I started with the original Orcad PCB and Express PCB is very similar so it was an easy learning curve. I typically only build a few sample boards so their 3 - two layer boards for $75 + shipping including silk screen and solder mask is a great deal. You can leave off the silk screen and solder mask and get 3 boards for $51 + shipping. Need a four layer board? 3 boards for $98 + shipping. Shipping could be a problem outside USA. I've never had to test that. They also offer higher volume pricing to save more but these are a bit more expensive than the typical send your gerber files out pricing you can get from China or anywhere else for that matter. To get around that, you can buy the gerbers for $60 after you produced a board through them. So I've ended up sticking with ExpressPCB for most of my designs since I mostly do prototypes. For the beginner, I think the one advantage they offer, besides the low cost prototype options, is the click to send to manufacture. As a beginner you don't have to know what gerber files are. Just build your board and then click to order. There are definitely limitations to expresspcb so I will probably have to switch to diptrace in the future but a beginner will probably not notice right away and there are many workarounds. I also like that there is a large community of users who share custom component layouts. This has been a great resource. www.elproducts.com |
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| isochronic Guru Joined: 21/01/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 689 |
A gripe I have about ExpressPCB is the high shipping charge to Aus. The prototype pcb cost is reasonable I guess, but they charge >$50 extra, for three small pcbs, to ship !!! That makes them too expensive here. (edit) I can't believe shipping actually costs $50. In fact I bought a small voltage standard sent via USpost, as I remember the post charge was much less. BTW It was sobering to see my cheapo multimeters' measurements in comparison. (sob!) I can recommend www.voltagestandard.com, as part of the purchase the standard is aged and calibrated, and at low cost. I have no connection with them, just a customer. |
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vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
Palcal, don't forget that you can contact the authors by email and ask for a key to extend the limit to 500 pads for free for non-commercial. Vasi P.S. Forgive me for the way I quoted your post 
Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
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muddy0409 Senior Member Joined: 15/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 125 |
http://www.futurlec.com.au/index.jsp Can make boards with Express. Very cheap compared to having them done by express themselves. Delivery is also pretty good. They are done in Thailand. Don't poo poo conspiracy theories. Remember that everything ever discovered started somewhere as a theory. |
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