|
I have done 5 boards with Kicad. 4 of them were small two
sided boards for test fixtures and after having them made all was well. The
autorouter worked OK for what I was doing. The last board I did was a 8 layer
board and the autorouter worked ok for the most part. There was still alot
of cleanup and hand routing but no more than usual. I did this design in Kicad
more as an experiment than anything else as the final design was done using
Mentor Graphics Expedition with Design View as the schematic capture. Obviously
the mentor graphics tool is set up for manufacturing with all the bells and
whistles for doing production boards. But has a hefty price upfront and a large
maintenance fee. So, all things considered I would say Kicad solves just
about all my small design needs. For large commercial design needs it does fall
alittle short but I don't think that is what Kicad is trying to be. It appears
from the documentation and the web site it was created for the use at a
university and therefore not made for larger commercial designs. If the intent
is for a fully functional commercial grade package it has a ways to go yet.
Therefore if your design needs are small run and/or not very complex
Kicad will do all you need. If your in a large commercial environment or
your designs are large and complex needing strict signal integrity and various
package types i.e. (BGA's, SMD, and Through-hole all in the same design) Kicad
is not ready for prime time. Kicad is now and will continue to be my package of
choice for small stuff. If you want a full blown package get ready to pull out
your wallet. Most full blown packages have price tags in the Thousands if
not tens of thousands of dollars and frankly about 80% of the bell and whistles
are useless or are never used. I don't know if there is a thing about free
software but I would be happy to give a tithing to whoever is maintaining Kicad
for there efforts.
AndyE
From:
[email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
David Novak
Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [kicad-users] kicad status/usability?
I've not created a board with Kicad yet, but from the
tutorial, I think it will do everything that I need.
These are not showstoppers for me, but a couple items that
seem to be missing are rectangular hole pads and cutouts. At least I
haven't discovered how to make it happen and no one has answered my questions
concerning those topics.
One design-for-manufact
For me, these issues are minor. So far, I have been
extremely impressed with Kicad and plan to use it to design proffessional
boards. Thank you to the author! This tool is great and I see it only getting
better.
David From: greg temple [mailto:greg_ Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 8:15 AM To: kicad-users@ Subject: [kicad-users] kicad status/usability? I'm just wondering what is the current status of kicad is? Is it reasonably usable for multilayer boards?. Is there any lists anywhere that show its currently usability status for doing real boards(without having to do crazy things or having crazy bugs) or any major holdups on necesary features?. Anyone have some comments? Thanks in advance Greg Send instant messages to your online friends
http://uk.messenger Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question. Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad. Please contribute your symbols/modules to the library folder in the group files section. For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-devel
SPONSORED LINKS
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
__,_._,___ |
- RE: [kicad-users] kicad status/usability? William Ehlers
- Re:[kicad-users] kicad status/usability? Pedro MartÃn
