Diptrace rocks.

[SmoothAction]

Guys, it's just so easy. After learning Eagle (at least good enough for what I need), I can positively say Diptrace is here to stay. I really recommend people give it a shot. It has it's ups and downs like Eagle, but ultimately Diptrace's pros far outweigh the cons in my opinion. I even imported my old Eagle SCH files into it with no problems. Making layouts is no longer a chore.

The UI is far more friendly. It just does what you want it to do (with a little patience at first). Here's a lame ROG OMEGA layout I just whipped up. The 3D option is simple and just looks darn cool. Loading the 3D library makes the previews pretty spankin' hip in my opinion.

Shout out to Chromesphere for his tutorials, although it was so straight forward I hardly needed to finish the video even. Thanks man!

[muddyfox]

Welcome to the dark side! 

[SmoothAction]

Yea, things are getting pretty weird over here. 

[Shrtyska9]

Anybody on OSX have diptrace working? Last time I tried to check it out it would only let me open the part editor and nothing else.

[cooder]

I guess I really have to check it out.... first initial look into it didn't quite draw me in as I'm used to Eagle and it took me awhile to get the hang of that, so resisting change now. Yet you guys are raving, so might have to have another crack at it....

[SmoothAction]

Anybody on OSX have diptrace working? Last time I tried to check it out it would only let me open the part editor and nothing else.

On my old Mac I was having problems too. I don't recommend it. I installed Parallels 7, a windows virtual machine, then installed the windows version of Diptrace. Basically it just runs Windows like an app, it ran much better. Eventually I installed a full Windows 7 partition on the Mac through Bootcamp. Ran excellent.

It really is a shame the Mac version is buggy. It turned me off at first, but it's not hard to install a virtual machine or go bootcamp. I did both, both worked fine.

[Shrtyska9]

Anybody on OSX have diptrace working? Last time I tried to check it out it would only let me open the part editor and nothing else.

On my old Mac I was having problems too. I don't recommend it. I installed Parallels 7, a windows virtual machine, then installed the windows version of Diptrace. Basically it just runs Windows like an app, it ran much better. Eventually I installed a full Windows 7 partition on the Mac through Bootcamp. Ran excellent.

It really is a shame the Mac version is buggy. It turned me off at first, but it's not hard to install a virtual machine or go bootcamp. I did both, both worked fine.

Yeah I have an XP partition on my Mac but I was hoping I could get the Mac version to work. Oh well.

Richard

[SmoothAction]

Anybody on OSX have diptrace working? Last time I tried to check it out it would only let me open the part editor and nothing else.

On my old Mac I was having problems too. I don't recommend it. I installed Parallels 7, a windows virtual machine, then installed the windows version of Diptrace. Basically it just runs Windows like an app, it ran much better. Eventually I installed a full Windows 7 partition on the Mac through Bootcamp. Ran excellent.

It really is a shame the Mac version is buggy. It turned me off at first, but it's not hard to install a virtual machine or go bootcamp. I did both, both worked fine.

Yeah I have an XP partition on my Mac but I was hoping I could get the Mac version to work. Oh well.

Richard

I certainly understand, I went through the same thing... but when all is said and done, just the learning curve of Eagle was hefty enough to warrant the trouble to get Diptrace on Windows. That doesn't even include developing a workflow within Eagle. I'd say it's far less trouble to get the Windows version of Diptrace. Once it's installed and you've got your workflow going in Diptrace (which to me is more efficient) it's kind of a no-brainer for me. YMMV.

If I was an employed EE with time to burn on complex and profitable projects, sure, I'd use Eagle. It's the industry "standard".

For making dirt simple projects like our little guitar pedals, playing around, having fun, etc... Diptrace wins without question.

[wgc]

I love dip trace. The libraries can be a little funky sometimes but great program for what I do.

Fyi  There's better programs than eagle for pro use, though it's not really bad aside from the ui.

[alanp]

The pin limitation on Diptrace scares me a bit (as well as the UI) -- I don't know how many pins I use for the likes of my sequencer board, but it's nice to not have to think about it.

Yes, the 80x100mm limitation in Eagle gets up my bloody nose. I need to learn gEDA or KiCAD.

[Shrtyska9]

I certainly understand, I went through the same thing... but when all is said and done, just the learning curve of Eagle was hefty enough to warrant the trouble to get Diptrace on Windows. That doesn't even include developing a workflow within Eagle. I'd say it's far less trouble to get the Windows version of Diptrace. Once it's installed and you've got your workflow going in Diptrace (which to me is more efficient) it's kind of a no-brainer for me. YMMV.

If I was an employed EE with time to burn on complex and profitable projects, sure, I'd use Eagle. It's the industry "standard".

For making dirt simple projects like our little guitar pedals, playing around, having fun, etc... Diptrace wins without question.




Yeah I hear ya. When I first downloaded eagle I sat there scratching my head going "uhhhh" but after watching Jacob's tutorial videos I feel quite comfortable creating double sided through hole layouts. Plus the fact that uploading to oshpark is as simple as uploading the .brd instead of exporting gerbers. The size restraint is the only reason I was looking at diptrace. I was working on an order switching board for a multi in a 1590dd using dip switches and board mounted 3pdts but I can't make the board wide enough in eagle.

Richard

[RobA]

...
Yes, the 80x100mm limitation in Eagle gets up my bloody nose. I need to learn gEDA or KiCAD.

I found gEDA to be a huge pain in the butt. KiCAD is easy. It does take a bit of mental realignment to make the move, but I find KiCAD to be a more logical workflow now. The best thing about KiCAD is how easy it is to make new parts and footprints. Second best thing about KiCAD is not getting that stupid error message from Eagle telling me I'm outside the allowed bounds.

[juansolo]

Anybody on OSX have diptrace working? Last time I tried to check it out it would only let me open the part editor and nothing else.

On my old Mac I was having problems too. I don't recommend it. I installed Parallels 7, a windows virtual machine, then installed the windows version of Diptrace. Basically it just runs Windows like an app, it ran much better. Eventually I installed a full Windows 7 partition on the Mac through Bootcamp. Ran excellent.

It really is a shame the Mac version is buggy. It turned me off at first, but it's not hard to install a virtual machine or go bootcamp. I did both, both worked fine.

I've got the windows version installed in Crossover. Ran it once... Thought I really don't do enough of one thing to really go about doing PCBs and have never run it since...

[jkokura]

Until they have a native Mac version, I won't be using Diptrace. That's one thing that Eagle does have.

Jacob

[SmoothAction]

Until they have a native Mac version, I won't be using Diptrace. That's one thing that Eagle does have.

Jacob

Most true, it's why I started with Eagle. It's a shame, DT is really putting people off by not having a native Mac version. X11 is just... ugh. I really should thank you for your Eagle tutorials Jacob. You've helped me and countless others get their hands dirty with making pro layouts.

Eagle is like learning to play guitar on a craigslist acoustic with horrible action, high tension strings, fingers bleeding struggling to get a good G chord. Then you learn how to make that guitar sound good with time and patience.

Diptrace, to me, was like playing my first electric guitar after I learned to play the crappy acoustic.

It's like butter.