[kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
--- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, Alain Mouette ala...@... wrote: Autorouter is the top most misunderstood piece of software. Most peole just think that it will make the boar for them. That is not the way to go. Freeroute is great for complex boards, but it usualy makes a mess of the conections and you will not be able to change much afterwards. The internal router o Kicad is good and very effective for smaler/simpler boards. It doesn't generate such complex traces, but it easyer to work on the board aftewards. I personaly have developped a very interesting technique: I run repeatedly an autorouter just to evaluate my placement, then I discard and try a better placement. This is very effective... Alain I've never had much luck with autorouters, every time I've tried to use one it just makes a huge mess of the boards, I can do a much nicer layout manually. It would be nice to have the option to click on a single net or two points on a net and have them autoroute, but the autorouters I've tried always attempt to route an entire net or the entire board. Having played with them, I can spot all sorts of commercial PCBs that were autorouted, and it's easy to see the difference between grid and ripup routers.
[kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
--- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, lynchaj lync...@... wrote: Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter. : : : Andrew Lynch Can you provide any evidence to support this opinion?
RE: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
What is wrong with using the auto router included in KICAD? (that is what I use) _ From: kicad-users@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kicad-us...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of dickelbeck Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 8:50 AM To: kicad-users@yahoogroups.com Subject: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design? --- In kicad-users@ mailto:kicad-users%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com, lynchaj lync...@... wrote: Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter. : : : Andrew Lynch Can you provide any evidence to support this opinion?
Re: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
One thing the router on gEDA allows that kicad doesn't is true arcs on the copper layers. I *think* Toporouter (which is what the OP wants to play with) also uses true arcs. I can't think of any reason why this would be important on a standard PCB, but on flexis true arcs are preferable. I guess all that's needed in Kicad is a gEDA PCB netlist plugin. I asked about this myself a while back but got no responses, so presumably there isn't one already written. As for the original post, when I saw it I did check my copy of PCB to see if it made any mention of Toporouter. I couldn't find any reference to it in the menus, so I guess to use it the OP will have to roll his own copy of PCB. Sounds like a lot of work to me... Regards, Robert. On 08/04/2010 16:06, juliorz wrote: What is wrong with using the auto router included in KICAD? (that is what I use) _ From: kicad-users@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kicad-us...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of dickelbeck Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 8:50 AM To: kicad-users@yahoogroups.com Subject: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design? --- In kicad-users@mailto:kicad-users%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com, lynchajlync...@... wrote: Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter. : : : Andrew Lynch Can you provide any evidence to support this opinion? No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.801 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2797 - Release Date: 04/07/10 19:32:00 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.801 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2797 - Release Date: 04/07/10 19:32:00
Re: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
Autorouter is the top most misunderstood piece of software. Most peole just think that it will make the boar for them. That is not the way to go. Freeroute is great for complex boards, but it usualy makes a mess of the conections and you will not be able to change much afterwards. The internal router o Kicad is good and very effective for smaler/simpler boards. It doesn't generate such complex traces, but it easyer to work on the board aftewards. I personaly have developped a very interesting technique: I run repeatedly an autorouter just to evaluate my placement, then I discard and try a better placement. This is very effective... Alain Em 08-04-2010 12:06, juliorz escreveu: What is wrong with using the auto router included in KICAD? (that is what I use)
[kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
--- In kicad-users@yahoogroups.com, josh_eeg josh...@... wrote: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design? I am looking to use the autorouters as a sugjestion to the way I want to route the board and to acsept some more trivial routing. The one that interested me the most was the Topological Autorouter Topological Autorouter http://www.wand.net.nz/~amb33/toporouter/ I emailed the author aparently the files are in GEDA but like other geda things and unlike kicad not quite documented. If anyone can show how to route my board using this I think that would be a great trial. Hi! I like the idea of the gEDA and/or Topological autorouter integration into KiCAD. Another possibility exists as well; the MUCS-PCB autorouter is GPL and could be integrated into KiCAD directly. It is license compatible and may be an improvement over the existing KiCAD autorouter. http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/apt/projects/tools/mucs-pcb/ Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter. I believe it would be a wise contingency for KiCAD developers to consider the alternatives to FreeRouting.net if it were to disappear suddenly some day. It doesn't hurt to be prepared. Is there a script to convert KiCAD board files to/from MUCS-PCB? Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch
