[kicad-users] Re: Comparison
--- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, KeepIt SimpleStupid [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Dan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: First, I have a question: what degree is your son working on? I have a BSEE degree from a top state university, and I never did any PCB design while in school. This is generally not covered in BS-level undergrad classes, and probably not in grad-level classes either. It's considered something you pick up on the job, if you need it. Agreed. I learned PC Layout at Hewlett-Packard, now Agilent in a Boy Scout Explorer's post in 1972. I taped a few major electroncs hobbyest projects and the Leach Amp (80's). The only layout software I've used extensively so far was DOS based, EasyTRax. The larger the library, the easier and faster the design. It's almost like what should probably happen is that the component industry should get together and define a universal importable footprint/3D model etc. These guys have done that with a neutral data base.. do a footprint once, one editor to learn and export to many PCB packages. http://www.accelerated-designs.com/ at a fairly low price for design houses that have to deal with multiple input formats. There is a huge KiCad Library ported from Eagle: http://library.oshec.org/ click the Download all button. A project that is needed is a library manager. KiCad is designed in a way that we only need one schematic symbol for a resistor yet have many choices of footprints. What the world really needs is a universal part numbering database that is close to the manufactures number, symbol for the schematic and footprint for the layout. Every company, HP included, in the past did their own because they had their own choice of PCB layout and manufacturing inventory, second sourcing and ordering system. Important to those companies still doing manufacturing plus engineering. This is one reason why Digikey is popular (they use to have an OrCad library), the Bill of Material becoming closer to a purchase order. But then no matter which PCB layout S/W you use there are always new parts on any new design and that is why H/W designers have come to expect a new part symbol and development boards with schematics. The problem is there is no standard format or database design. A project called MR1 looked promising for anyone wanting to jump into this type of adventure. -Frank Bennett Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
Re: [kicad-users] Re: Comparison
One important point I haven't seen here is that manual routing is a skill that is worth learning, because even the best auto-routers will invariably leave you with one track to route manually, and when you come to do that one track you'll realise why it couldn't be done and just how difficult a problem it is to solve. I learnt that skill at a time when a £1000 pound computer offered 16k of RAM and had at best blocky graphics with a resolution of something like 80x50. How? I used squared paper, a pencil, and a decent rubber. I've been using those skills for the last thirty years, but using better tools with each passing year. Kicad will teach your son those skills without the pain of resorting to the one tool I used rather a lot but didn't mention, namely the waste paper basket, but it costs less than a pad of squared paper. Regards, Robert. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.15.31/1129 - Release Date: 11/13/2007 21:22
[kicad-users] Re: Comparison
I agree with you Robert. Manual routing is a skill that can be learn simply by doing it and it all started when no computer or application can do that for you many years ago. A paper, an eraser and a pencil is a good start.
[kicad-users] Re: Comparison
First, I have a question: what degree is your son working on? I have a BSEE degree from a top state university, and I never did any PCB design while in school. This is generally not covered in BS-level undergrad classes, and probably not in grad-level classes either. It's considered something you pick up on the job, if you need it. The whole idea of learning one particular software package in preparation for a job in industry is ridiculous, IMO. If you shell out $25,000 for Orcad or PADS or whatever (!), what happens when you apply to a company that uses something different but similarly costly? You just wasted $25k! You could have downloaded Kicad (or even EAGLE) for free and had the same background: familiarity with a different PCB design package that will allow you to come up to speed more quickly than someone who's never designed a PCB before. Or were you planning on selling your house and purchasing seats for all the major PCB programs so your son can have a slight advantage in getting an entry-level job paying $50k? I don't mean to insult you, but I have these dollar figures are giving you a bit of sticker shock, because they should. This isn't like buying a copy of MS Office (which is still expensive, but not compared to EDA software) instead of downloading OpenOffice.org for free. EDA software of any kind is usually extremely expensive, if you're a private individual on a budget. It's priced for companies who can afford to spend tens of thousands on a single software package, because that's a lot cheaper than having a team of $200k/year engineers (including salary, benefits, etc.) waste their valuable time with software that doesn't work as well. If you're just some guy at home with an electronics hobby, the idea of purchasing anything more industry standard than EAGLE (which is not an industry standard compared to the high-dollar packages) is just insanity unless you have more money than you know what to do with. On top of all that, companies have a penchant for wasting money on software when there's free software available that works better. Look how many companies still use Windows for tasks that would be much better suited to Linux. (Not all do; take a trip to your local Lowe's sometime, and notice that all their terminals actually use a modified KDE.) Most big companies have managers who think you get more if you pay more, or you need some big company standing behind a product in case something goes wrong; these companies don't understand open-source/Free software at all. But times are changing. As someone else said, those high-dollar PCB packages feature rather clunky interfaces designed 30 years ago it seems. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kicad match and exceed many of these packages in 3-5 years, and for some of them to fall by the wayside. It's not as fast as with other Free software, where there's a larger userbase (like office software and operating systems), but there's still a decent amount of users here, and a decent amount of people who can help with software development. In addition, lots of people make their own parts libraries and contribute these back, which takes a lot of work out of designing a PCB. Personally, I'd like to see Kicad include more of these in the default distribution rather than having to get them separately. Dan --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, 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.
[kicad-users] Re: Comparison
I just want to make a comment that not all BS-level undergrad classes are not teaching how to use different kind of EDA packages for PCB design. Here it seems like the use of different EDA packages are standard courses under BSECE or BSEE which is part of the curriculum. Learning one PCB design software generally gives you an idea how to easily adjust and work towards the other. It will be much easier for you to learn how to use other EDA packages if you know how to use one. All of them use standard features which is easily transferable. Learning Kicad on the other hand as your first EDA package is very essential when you start to work for the industries that uses commercial EDA packages like Protel, OrCAD (Cadence), PADS, P-CAD, Eagle, etc. because these commercial EDA packages offer more features but still contains the standard ones that can be found Kicad. So it means you can easily adapt from Kicad to any of the commercial EDA packages. You will see that most of the features you are looking for in Kicad might exist in these commercial ones so learning Kicad is a valuable part in the process even for a beginner or advance user. I've been using Protel for 6 years now but when I started to learn Kicad, P-CAD, OrCAD, etc. several years ago I was able to adapt easily just by exploring the software itself and this forum doesn't exist yet so there's no one to ask for help. So you see that learning one EDA package (any package) is all that you need and explore. Good luck to you all. --- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Dan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: First, I have a question: what degree is your son working on? I have a BSEE degree from a top state university, and I never did any PCB design while in school. This is generally not covered in BS-level undergrad classes, and probably not in grad-level classes either. It's considered something you pick up on the job, if you need it. The whole idea of learning one particular software package in preparation for a job in industry is ridiculous, IMO. If you shell out $25,000 for Orcad or PADS or whatever (!), what happens when you apply to a company that uses something different but similarly costly? You just wasted $25k! You could have downloaded Kicad (or even EAGLE) for free and had the same background: familiarity with a different PCB design package that will allow you to come up to speed more quickly than someone who's never designed a PCB before. Or were you planning on selling your house and purchasing seats for all the major PCB programs so your son can have a slight advantage in getting an entry-level job paying $50k? I don't mean to insult you, but I have these dollar figures are giving you a bit of sticker shock, because they should. This isn't like buying a copy of MS Office (which is still expensive, but not compared to EDA software) instead of downloading OpenOffice.org for free. EDA software of any kind is usually extremely expensive, if you're a private individual on a budget. It's priced for companies who can afford to spend tens of thousands on a single software package, because that's a lot cheaper than having a team of $200k/year engineers (including salary, benefits, etc.) waste their valuable time with software that doesn't work as well. If you're just some guy at home with an electronics hobby, the idea of purchasing anything more industry standard than EAGLE (which is not an industry standard compared to the high-dollar packages) is just insanity unless you have more money than you know what to do with. On top of all that, companies have a penchant for wasting money on software when there's free software available that works better. Look how many companies still use Windows for tasks that would be much better suited to Linux. (Not all do; take a trip to your local Lowe's sometime, and notice that all their terminals actually use a modified KDE.) Most big companies have managers who think you get more if you pay more, or you need some big company standing behind a product in case something goes wrong; these companies don't understand open-source/Free software at all. But times are changing. As someone else said, those high-dollar PCB packages feature rather clunky interfaces designed 30 years ago it seems. I wouldn't be surprised to see Kicad match and exceed many of these packages in 3-5 years, and for some of them to fall by the wayside. It's not as fast as with other Free software, where there's a larger userbase (like office software and operating systems), but there's still a decent amount of users here, and a decent amount of people who can help with software development. In addition, lots of people make their own parts libraries and contribute these back, which takes a lot of work out of designing a PCB. Personally, I'd like to see Kicad include more of these in the default distribution rather than having to get them separately. Dan --- In
