Pcb design resources

[Jmilla]

I have been out of the loop for most of the last year on here and want to start doing some of my own pcb layouts. I know there is a ton of knowledge out here but I am wondering were I should start? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for the help, glad to be back.

[Jmilla]

The other thing is what free software does everyone use for this?

[jimilee]

Check out the library section


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[mjg]

I've been trying Fritzing to do PCB layout ... I found it a bit frustrating first try.  Couldn't work out what it was doing with the ground connections.  I'm sure if I rtfm it would make sense. 

[Jmilla]

Do people prefer diptrace or eagle? Also I looked at several me of the materials last night and see the wealth of info but am unsure of what to go through first. Fritzring does look a little frustrating.

[Jmilla]

what are the pros / cons for diptrace vs eagle?

[jkokura]

I prefer Eagle because it runs on my Mac, I already know how to use it, and it does all that I want it to do. I believe some people began using Diptrace because they liked some of the features it had over Eagle, but for those who, like me, were already using Eagle it wasn't something I was wanting to transition to.

You can't go wrong with either.

Jacob

[EBRAddict]

Friends don't let friends use Fritzing http://hackaday.com/2016/10/11/creating-a-pcb-in-everything-friends-dont-let-friends-use-fritzing/

I use Eagle and bought a hobbyist license during one of their 50% off sales. There are plenty of irritations while using it, but there are many good libraries out there (including the one here). The biggest irritant is the board size license restriction. It doesn't matter if you have one component or a million, you cannot exceed the paltry board license restrictions. KiCad is another option.

[madbean]

The dimension limitation of Eagle can be a bit frustrating simply because it limits where you can place components in the workspace when you are doing a layout (I like to organize things in blocks first). But, the size restriction itself is plenty big. My license is for 160mmx100mm and I don't think I have run into that being a problem yet. Plus, they have the free version to get you started, and you can use my entire Eagle library which I have been modifying for years (in the Eagle section of this forum---it's a modified version of the older gaussmarkov one).

There are a couple frustrating things for me about Eagle but mostly I love working with it. And, it never, ever crashes.

[davent]

I first tried ExpressPCB which i found a snap/intuitive to learn and put into use, seemed to parallel nicely with a CAD program i was already using. I've no intention of having boards manufactured outside my shop so ExpressPCB is fine for what i do, if i was going to use an outside manufacturer i'd learn/use one of the others mentioned.

Messed a bit with Eagle but it was an entirely new language.

dave

[gtr2]

Eagle or KiCad IMO

[alanp]

Eagle here, too. You've seen the dopey stuff I've done with my copy

The 100x80mm limitation on the free version isn't' really much of a limitation at all, for stompbox building. The Nameless boards fit within that limitation.

I only really needed the 100x160mm licence for stupidly big stuff, like the Nine Sixty sequencer, and the Heavy Water layout.

Plus there's a lot more libraries and support for Eagle than KiCad, from what I've seen. I tried KiCad, and I found it massively obtuse and hard to use.

[Jmilla]

Thank you guys so much, I think I'm gonna try my hand at eagle. I played with it a bit today and between the various libraries available and the awesome tutorials I think this will let me do my learning and give me some room to be creative.

[sturgeo]

I primarily use eagle for everything however i've ran into the dimension limit, head first, hard.
My 8 loop programmable looper boards are nearly 240mm x 50mm, fortunately each of the boards has less than 300 pins so the freeware/$75 starter version are more than adequate.

From a usability standpoint, eagle is much easier to use, I'm probably using diptrace wrong but laying everything out and then drawing the traces seems more prone to errors for me than creating the schem and then generating the board with the airwires.

[287m]

i use Eagle, for layout
then, run Eagle for Diptrace pcb ulp
open Diptrace, only to view the 3D component
hahaha, my easy way