Board design

[petec]

I used protel about 10 years ago, and at that time it was a reasonably capable piece of software. Aside from the software I use at work (Mentor Graphics), I've found eagle pretty good for basic stuff where highspeed rules don't apply. But more recently I've been playing with a free pcb design tool from RS components - DesignSpark PCB. apart from its rubbish name, it's very good - probably better than eagle in both usability and feature set - and whats more it imports eagle designs, libraries etc. I would recommend everyone takes a look - however, I've yet to ouput a design through it...

cheers,

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[John Lawton]

DesignSpark is aka Easy-PC - www.numberone.com

John

[dmTulsa]

Lots of choices. I think I'm going to just study / learn ISIS and ARES. For one thing I have it for use whenever I need it, it seems the learning curve is less than Aultim and I'll have the VSM as part of it. There should be nothing I can't do with it and if there is then I'll just hire it out. I need to spend my time on firmware / software. Simple hardware design is ok but beyond that I'll leave it to pro's. I hope the hardware guy's do the same.

Thank you all again for your thoughts.
Doug

[GAMBOA]

Hi Doug,

I work with Altium since 2007. Before, I had worked with Orcad.
Altium learn from scratch will take some time. It is a very powerful software all in one. If your board is going to be double-sided with not many components need not be done with software loaded with options. If you're thinking of a package with some projecting future design then it is an option.

Regards,
Gamboa

[wastrix]

Random comment: Elektor and NASA use Altium Designer

[shantanu@india]

Just installed Designspark but could not import my Eagle files.
Does anybody have any idea?

[dmTulsa]

I've been playing with Proteus the last couple weeks and I must say it seems too easy. From ISIS to ARES to a full board is just a few mouse clicks. I've always gone by the fact that if it seems to good to be true these's a problem.

This is not a complicated board but not really simple. 8 IC's, 25 caps, 18 resistors, 4-10 pin connectors ect......

Really, I placed the connectors and then auto placed the rest of the components then did an auto route. I know there a finer details like ground planes I need to figure out but if thats half as easy its way too cool.

Does the Auto place & Auto route really work that good? There's got to be more to it?

Doug

[Tim]

It depends on how well you set things up and I have never been that bothered to find out how to do it.

If you say set all power lines to be X track and placed the important comp's in the right place, like connectors then let it do the rest it might make a good job. But I have a thing about auto route and in most cases I will do a better job.

Some times when I get stuck I will get it to do the last few tracks then clean it up afterwards. However I like it to look just right and will mess with it for days after getting it just so.

[dmTulsa]

Thanks Tim. That's about what i thought. I need to spend some time and verify everything. Tweek it here and there. But I'm pretty impressed thus far.

My real worry is the ground plain as I'm ignorant about them but know they are vital. I'll try the auto 'pour' and see what happens. For this board it makes little difference but for my RF board it will be critical as its the counter-pose for the antenna.

Thank you
Doug

[Tim]

With the gnd plane, what I do is place on both sides with the net set to Grnd

Then track (you can do it later) the way Ares works is that grounds are applied from the outside in so you can get islands were this is no copper. The trick is to prevent the islands by opening up paths through to all sections of the board. You can do this by swapping sides with a track to let the copper flow around.

When you want to place a via between sides the easiest way is to start from a component with a grnd pin then track it around the board jumping from one side to the other by double clicking.

No idea on RF layouts...