Re: [kicad-users] Comparison
Bob, First, the most important to know about schematic cads as well as pcb cads, are how to implement a set of "best practice" while working with the system ( KICad ). KiCad is good by letting you - without the need for tweaks and workarounds, adhere to good working practice while cad'ing your designs. The biiig difference between pcb cads are the supporting applications, especially for high speed ( emc prone ) designs as well as RF designs. In KiCad, you have to switch on your own brain to do any Maxwell simulations etc. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the price tag. CAD softwares are low volume products with heavy maintenance. This have to be paid by someone - the customer. A good software can easily cost 25,000$ per head and year in maintenance/upgrades. But be reminded, they are probably not making a lot of profit on the software sale! The profit comes mostly from training! Training to be able to follow best design practice KiCad is good for 90% or more of both analog/digital and RF designs. These with special requirements on RF designs, they have to more or less do manual designs anyway - and KiCad will do nicely here too. I wouldn't use KiCad for the design of a 5000 Dual Core AMD 64 motherboard... But even the thought of that is slightly daft. I have so far not been hindered in my Hamradio designs when using KiCad so this have to be named my primary choice. I'm not locked in to Windows - I use Linux and if you add QUCS to your design suite, you can go very very far before running out of tools. It would of course be nice with backward annotation and a good simulator interface but I still prefer the main development efforts to focus on the standard cad features... //Dan, M0DFI > > On Nov 12, 2007 7:01 AM, rtnmi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Can someone tell me how Kicad compares to commercial software for the > > same purpose of Electronic Design. > > > > My son is working toward his degree and I wanted him to use Kicad if it > > will help him with software that is industry standard. > > > > I am using it for my hobby of Ham Radio. > > > > tnx Bob
Re: [kicad-users] Comparison
Kicad vs. Commercial. The only issues that would be different is the bells and whistles. Commercial software has more features for ease of use. As far as learning for your son I would say go with Kicad he will learn a lot more by having to do things manualy than he will with all the automatic crap that commercial tools have. Just remember at the end of the day there are only 2 real questions. Can you manufacture a circuit that works? Can it be done in a timely fashion so I make money? Kicad does the first without fail. The second, not so good. On large complex designs, Mixed signal, or high speed designs where you need to group signal classes or have special routing requirements manual routing will simply take to long. This makes Kicad, I hate to say, not ready for primetime. This is not a bad thing it just is what it is. But it is free and most commercial packages are in the 5K to 25K range. I don't mean to be negative about Kicad in fact just the opposite, I would like to give a big thank you to the developers. If it wasn't for them I would not be able to do any of my smaller designs since I am not able to buy a 25K package with the annual upgrade fee's and all the assundry crap that goes with. Anyway I am sorry for rambling and I will repeat that your son should learn on Kicad so he gets the understanding of how to do a design not just which button to push. AndyE On Nov 12, 2007 7:01 AM, rtnmi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Can someone tell me how Kicad compares to commercial software for the > same purpose of Electronic Design. > > My son is working toward his degree and I wanted him to use Kicad if it > will help him with software that is industry standard. > > I am using it for my hobby of Ham Radio. > > tnx Bob > >
Re: [kicad-users] Comparison
Hmmm. Well I've used various commercial CAD packages over the years, and I've found them expensive (ludicrously so if they have a name as an industry standard) and unreliable, and they invariably seem to have a dreadful user interface invented about thirty years ago that the developers proudly hang on to no matter how weird it is or how badly it fits in with current operating systems. So I guess kicad compares pretty badly with industry standards ;). Regards, Robert. rtnmi wrote: > Can someone tell me how Kicad compares to commercial software for the > same purpose of Electronic Design. > > My son is working toward his degree and I wanted him to use Kicad if it > will help him with software that is industry standard. > > I am using it for my hobby of Ham Radio. > > tnx Bob > > > > 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 visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your > symbols/modules to the kicad library. > For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the > kicad-devel group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-devel > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.15.30/1125 - Release Date: 11/11/2007 21:50
[kicad-users] Comparison
Can someone tell me how Kicad compares to commercial software for the same purpose of Electronic Design. My son is working toward his degree and I wanted him to use Kicad if it will help him with software that is industry standard. I am using it for my hobby of Ham Radio. tnx Bob
