On 15/12/2010 17:23, V G wrote: > On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 7:31 AM, Oli Glaser wro= te: > >> Difficult one - not really settled completely since I "moved" from >> Diptrace hence the reason I still use it a bit. >> Probably between one of the decent free ones like Kicad, or the licensed >> version of Eagle (the free one cannot be used for commercial purposes, >> as is the case for a lot of other free versions of design software) >> I will keep Diptrace too as it's not a bad program and pretty solid >> (even if I don't upgrade it) >> Whatever I settle on needs to be stable, capable of reasonably complex >> multilayer design and bug free, which rules 95% of open source stuff >> out, but I will give Kicad a good try as I have heard good things about >> it, and although it's not the easiest to pick up, it looks quite powerfu= l. >> Sorry I can't be more specific as I'm still in the process of trying new >> stuff out, though I can say Diptrace has done fine for quite some time - >> no real complaints (just decided to see what else was out there) > > What about OrCAD/Allegro/Altium/Proteus? Not too keen on Proteus, and have not tried OrCAD or Allegro.. I actually meant to mention Altium above, I've tried it and like it very=20 much (great if you are doing high speed designs with FPGAs as it has=20 signal integrity and FPGA design built in, as well as many other cool=20 features) Despite the price, I would seriously consider it at some point in the=20 future if I can justify the cost vs benefits over currently used=20 programs (probably depend quite a bit on how much FPGA stuff I will be=20 doing) Although 3D board viewing etc is very nice, I'm not really sold on the=20 flashy aspects in the end of the day (or "clever" features that don't=20 actually do much), it all comes down to what will do the job (well) at=20 the best price. One major thing for me is good libraries (which Altium most definitely=20 have from what I've seen) with a quick and easy way to make your own=20 parts - seems to be one of the most time consuming bits of designing=20 with any package as there is no "quick" way of naming all the pins,=20 designing footprints etc, so the more already done for you the better. I=20 think Eagle is pretty good for libraries from what I can see, although=20 someone with more experience with it (like Olin) would know more. Good=20 support and a popular file format are useful too, especially when=20 importing designs into other packages or sending to people (another plus=20 for Eagle) --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .