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Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Hi all,
I just came across this:
I believe it's sponsored by RS, in the same way that LTSpice was sponsored by Linear.
What do you think? Have you used it? We're currently looking for a replacement for the Cadence tools to use in teaching. They are too complicated for our students (not to mention for me )
Registered Member #1334
Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615
Steve McConner wrote ...
Hi all,
I just came across this:
I believe it's sponsored by RS, in the same way that LTSpice was sponsored by Linear.
What do you think? Have you used it? We're currently looking for a replacement for the Cadence tools to use in teaching. They are too complicated for our students (not to mention for me )
I presume you meant "in the same was Eagle is now owned by Farnell"... LTspice was a Linear internally developed tool for SMPS simulation that (thankfully) got released, Eagle was bought by Farnell last year (for a reported EUR 12M) and now has BOM integration into Farnell (designlink.ulp). I'm not sure what DesignSpark is based on, but it seems pretty new judging by the instability issues some users are having -
Obviously worth keeping an eye on - Bearing in mind Eagle is free for non-commercial use (with small limitations) you have to ask yourself what RS are trying to achieve. These sorts of packages are horrendously complicated to build from scratch and take some time to stabilise, so I'm wondering if there is history here, what it is...
Edit: It can import Eagle files, but not Protel. Read into that what you will...
Edit again! Though so - Its made by Number One Systems, providers of Easy-PC...
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
I didn't actually know Farnell had bought Eagle. I guess that explains why RS had to come out with their own BOM-integrated PCB package too.
We use Eagle in production, but we have our own custom BOM database that pulls in whatever suppliers we want. Now that we're working with a PCB layout guy who uses PADS, it's getting to be a real pain and we're thinking of changing to PADS too.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
I never trust any tool with the word "Easy" in its name... Or "Professional" for that matter
Thanks for the industry gossip anyway! It'll be interesting to see what Farnell do with Eagle. I'm sure the BOM integration thing is a big earner. We have a lot of man-hours in our BOM database, and all of them pretty dull.
Registered Member #570
Joined: Wed Mar 07 2007, 03:41PM
Location: Winchester Uk
Posts: 42
I'm about to start documenting my projects circuit diagrams a bit better and also designing a few boards at home. I wonder which will be the easiest to learn...
Registered Member #538
Joined: Sun Feb 18 2007, 08:33PM
Location: Finland
Posts: 181
I've used kicad too and its very usable. Maybe not for professional use but for hobbyists (after you get the hang of it) its pretty much as good as eagle. They seem to respond pretty fast to bug reports too. If you want to try it I suggest you get the newest version from the bazaar branch.
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Designspark free PCB software- what do you think?
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