![]() I started using EasyEDA since it is open source. EasyEDA, Upverter, Circuit.io are leaders among these. A cloud/browser based solutions for electronics design applications. Then I seen that another era of design is evolving. For beginners and medium level designs DipTrace seems to be best tool for me. Then I realized the truth that these OrCad, Altium softwares are for designing highly completed circuits like a computer motherboard. I never used latest versions of OrCad as I seen that they are much more complex and sophisticated. It was very easy and responsive to make a pcb with DipTrace compared to OrCad. Phase 3 : DiptraceĪfter that I seen that some of my friends are using DipTrace. ![]() Don’t need to worry above measurements every time, just create a component footprint one then use it in as many projects.Īfter completing the PCB design we could export the gerber files and send for PCB fabrication. Compared to my previous hand drawn experience it was really awesome. Then one of my friend introduced me OrCad. After that I will put that copper clad in the ferric chloride solution for etching. I used to harden the permanent marker tracks several times to avoid discontinuity. After the design is completed, I used to copy the design to copper clad using permanent marker. Several iterations of drawing was required to make even a small circuit. Mostly I used graph papers to design PCB as it was very easy to make measurements and alignments. I started designing PCB manually without using any softwares. I started doing hobby circuits before 8 years and now I am doing professional circuits. And yes, software companies adopt subscription due to the sole reason of maximising their profits and to have consistent flow of income, which values them in regards to shareholders.Today I am gonna write about my PCB designing journey that happened before 8 year. But: subscription will be the future for most if not all commercial software products and if their productivity and functionality is much better than equivalent alternative software that is not subscription based, you are screwed, as you can choose to be a) dependent on subscription or b) less productive. I agree that subscription is bullshit for the user, as you are in the hands of the software provider. Anyway, I don't want to start another discussion on free vs paid software, cloud vs non-cloud, subscription vs perpetual, etc. I was just pointing out that: a) Fusion 360 does exist and may be an alternative b) It is powerfull due to combining different manufacturing aspects c) Many of the concerns (like the ones you mention) may not be that important: Cloud based is probably as secure as using files locally (they can be victims of ransomware for example or you can delete them by acccident or the harddisk may fail, etc.) commercial application may be closed source subject to licensing, but then a typical project is developed over the period of 1-5 years - who cares about the files after that? And why should Autodesk or any other vendor stop selling their products? Finally, when you are using free/open source software, who will you complain with, when the software does not work as expected? Having access to the source code hardly means you will be able to do somthing with it, unless you are a programmer - in which case you will probably not be using the software as a user. CS has missing productivity features such as 'find similar objects' (my biggest gripe) and some minor bugs, but for smaller designs I still think its very usable. Yeh, sucker! AD is good but sometimes I miss the simpler CS interface. I've published a few small demo projects done with CS, they might help you get started: In the first COVID wave, Altium had some very good pricing for CS to AD upgrades so I jumped on that. CS PCBs can be easily imported into AD but the other way isn't so easy, although doable. So, its a good one for the CV if your trying for a seat at an Altium desk. Apparently Altium is launching an updated all-new CS but that was supposedly beta testing 18 months ago! The best bit of CS is that it has similar workflow to AD, with compatible libraries and schematics. ![]() ![]() Both of them have dropped the ball, CS could have been very good with some small effort, but they lost interest. CS was borne out of some kind of deal between Farnell/Element14 and Altium.
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