On 25/09/15 07:13, Reinhardt Behm wrote:> Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote: > >> Den torsdag den 24. september 2015 kl. 20.48.48 UTC+2 skrev 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? >>> >> >> 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 > > 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. :-) >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.
Altium Designer Pricing
Started by ●April 2, 2014
Reply by ●September 25, 20152015-09-25
Reply by ●September 25, 20152015-09-25
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 despiteSame 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
Reply by ●September 25, 20152015-09-25
On 22-Sep-15 10:18 PM, John Larkin wrote:> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 19:00:30 +0800, Oltimer <nup@nup.com> wrote: > >> On 22-Sep-15 10:32 AM, akrauter23@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! > > 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. > >This was for a small company with 1-1/2 users. We saved our dollars for another day.
Reply by ●September 25, 20152015-09-25
On 9/25/2015 1:13 AM, Reinhardt Behm wrote:> Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote: > >> Den torsdag den 24. september 2015 kl. 20.48.48 UTC+2 skrev 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? >>> >> >> 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 > > 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. :-)Real programmers don't need a computer monitor. -- Rick
Reply by ●September 25, 20152015-09-25
On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux <john@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
Reply by ●September 25, 20152015-09-25
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
Reply by ●September 26, 20152015-09-26
On Saturday, 26 September 2015 06:35:13 UTC+10, rickman wrote:> 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?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
Reply by ●September 27, 20152015-09-27
Neon John <no@never.com> writes:> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux > <john@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
Reply by ●September 27, 20152015-09-27
John Devereux <john@devereux.me.uk> wrote:> Neon John <no@never.com> writes: > >> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux >> <john@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.
Reply by ●September 27, 20152015-09-27
Rob <nomail@example.com> writes:> John Devereux <john@devereux.me.uk> wrote: >> Neon John <no@never.com> writes: >> >>> On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:55:53 +0100, John Devereux >>> <john@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.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
