Product Brief
Professional PCB design tool comes for free
Colin Holland7/4/2010 2:57 PM EDT
Comment
Jimelectr
Well, I just may have to give it a try. I haven't tried those free PCB design ...
Miljan
Free, does not mean reliable DRC. Still sicking to OrCad or Alitium.
The only limitation is that you have to join the company's DesignSpark community to unlock the full functionality.
Developed in partnership with Number One Systems, specialists in the design of electronics CAD software, DesignSpark PCB is the first RS-created free design tool to be made available via its Spark Store.
Users will have access to a full suite of video tutorials, examples and a parts library. Engineers can create schematics that target any sized PCB with any number of layers, and import designs created in other PCB design software.
Fully (auto) routed and design-rule checked designs can then be exported in a number of file formats including IDF, DXF and standard Gerber/manufacturing format, enabling progression into mechanical design.
DesignSpark PCB also comes with a component library that can be extended and shared – through DesignSpark – with other engineers. Details of the components used from the library form the basis of the bill of materials generated by DesignSpark PCB, which can then be used to create an order or quotation request through the usual RS web portals.
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Miljan
7/6/2010 9:28 AM EDT
Free, does not mean reliable DRC. Still sicking to OrCad or Alitium.
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Jimelectr
7/15/2010 2:20 AM EDT
Well, I just may have to give it a try. I haven't tried those free PCB design tools offered by the PCB fab shops yet, but it just occurred to me that they would probably know a lot more about how PCB designers work than the EDA software houses. I've used several PCB design software packages, and it appears that the software jocks that wrote them didn't have a clue as to how PCB's are actually designed. Stuff like "verb then noun" instead of "noun then verb" really slows a designer down (me, anyway). I'd much rather be able to grab onto something and then decide what to do with it than be forced to decide what I want to do and then choose the objects of my action. Or this baloney of excess traces inside copper pours causing design rule errors. I could go on and on. My list of gripes about the package I use currently has about 40 entries on it, mostly annoyances, but there are some serious bugs. Maybe if a PCB design service bureau put out a software package it would actually be useful...
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