PCB Software Suggestions

[Noway2]

For a few years now, I have been using PCAD 2001 to develop my PCBs. Until recently, this tool, which is limited to 6 layers and 400 components, has been sufficient for my needs. The problem is that the boards that I have been desiging have been steadilly increasing in their complexity and the one am currently designing exceeds the component limit. The board that I am working on is an IO board with a fairly large number of inputs and outputs and a wide variety of functionaility which drives up the component usage very quickly and this board exceeds the capabilities of my present tool.

I am looking for suggestions for a PCB development (software) package and I wanted to ask what "y'all" are using to develop your PCBs with these days? I am intereted in a commercial package that can reliably handle relatively complex boards for production purposes rather than a free or demo 'web based' program geared towards hobbyists and small quantity prototyping.

 

[zappedagain]

My salesperson recently (last five months) told me that demo licenses aren't available for PCAD nor Altium Designer. Maybe they gave up on that licensing mess you describe.

I don't have warm-fuzzies about PCAD sticking around either; when I told the Altium salesperson I was interested in PCAD he strongly, strongly pushed me toward Altium (funny though, the price was the same...).

Altium has excellent tech support for PCAD. I'm assuming it is just as good for Altium Designer...

 

[kf6bbl]

I've been using PADs for about 14 years now, back into the DOS days. Yes PADs started in DOS, not the workstation environment mentioned above.
Back then we had rules like, save every 5 mintues to a different filename, so when the program locks and corrupts the database, you can step back 5 mintues and recover. Now PADs autosaves a backup file to a different filename every 5 minutes. Talk about progress...
PADs got swallowed by Mentor Graphics, which already had Viewlogic and ViewDraw. I had used those on the Sun platform through Xwindows. Eventually the old Viewlogic was obsoleted and the PADs codebase took it's place, from what I was told.

Bottom line is PADs is a mature product, and although it got a rough start, it is probably the best all around product, especially when using the schematic and PCB packages together. Holy dual monitors batman!

I would recommend staying away from Eagle, even considering the $0 price. With most packages there is a ASCII import/export, or someway to convert designs to other CAD systems, but with Eagle it is a dead end. Right now I have an Eagle design that I had contracted out, and now wish to maintain it in PADs. This board will be completely re-layed out to go from Rev B to Rev C. Oh well.

I'm down a couple revs on PADs, and have been looking into current software. I've been poking for current prices for PADs, but buying CAD software is worse than buying a used car. Anyone know what the real price for powerlogic and powerpcb are?

-Bill
CE Designer Forum

http://www.cedesigner.com

 

[itsmoked]

[green]'Now PADs autosaves a backup file to a different filename every 5 minutes. Talk about progress..."[/green]

Ah man that is a choice observation!!! HAHAHAHAHA

I am sorry to hear that about Eagle. <sniff>

The couple times I used it I was pleasantly surprised by it. I use a custom layout package a colleague created. It is extremely powerful running on top of AutoCad but of course I have now built up hundreds of schematics and thousands of parts built just the way I like them and so anything else means another long slog through the valleyofdarkness.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[felixc]

There is also Pulsonix. A complete suite at prices that seem too good to be true. Interactive pin and gate swap included. Import and export look fine too. Is there anyone in the forum who tried or who uses it?

 

[itsmoked]

Wow felixc; $5k without auto routing and any of the several options, all of them over $1k. Ouch. Sounds nice though.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[felixc]

Well, what is the cost of a comparably equipped OrCAD or PADS suite nowadays?

It is still far from given, so this why I was hoping a comment from someone who might have been using it. Is it bugged? Are the bugs worked out by any support team? Are they at least documented?

I'd die for these automatic differential routing features, but my death is not worth the price of these recent design suites so I stick to my outdated versions until my value goes up. ;-)

 

[kf6bbl]

And that is another reason why I have stuck with PADs 3.51 for so many years. I know exactly where each bug is, and how to avoid it. They are minor, bug can be a pain if not anticipated.

I got a price of $4K for PADs 2006 with schematic, PCB, and 2 layer autorouter. From another source I got a price of $3.5K for the same thing. I am still looking for another datapoint to find out if they can be unbundled, and if the prices are padded (no pun intended).

-Bill
CE Designer Forum

http://www.cedesigner.com

 

[zappedagain]

Basic PADS Schematic and layoout (PowerLogic and PowerPCB) is $3500 node locked (dongle) for a combo package (Suite).

About $4500 for a dongle for PowerLogic and another dongle for PowerPCB so one user can be working on a schematic and another working on a layout at the same time. About $1200 for the PowerLogic dongle and $3300 for the PowerPCB dongle.

About $5300 to get the two license on your network. About $1500 for PowerLogic and $3800 for PowerPCB.

OrCAD runs $8000 for the base package.

Altium Designer is $10000. Same price for PCAD from Altium. That might be negotiable; the initial quote is about $2000 higher than we paid about four years ago with another company...

That's the basic packages; the options add up fast to push you to the $10K mark. Add digital simulation on the high end (Hyperlynx) and you can be talking over $30K for full PADS system.

 

[kf6bbl]

Thanks zapped! A straightforward answer - You would never survive in sales.

-Bill
CE Designer Forum

http://www.cedesigner.com

 

[yourtaxesatwork]

We've actually been looking for a CAD mfr to get into bed with so we can marry-up EPD's PCB and Schematic translators with their package. For us, it would be great to have a working intermediate format. For them the advantages of being able to load and save files from and to several other mfrs are incalculable.

Ideally, I'd like something EPD could distribute as well, so we can get some direct advantage, as well as feedback.

I don't want to bother approaching one of the big ones (PADS, PCAD, etc.) since they'd just swallow us up (that and the fact that they probably wouldn't be interested).

Anybody got any ideas or recommendations?

Dan Judd
danjudd@epdcorp.com

 

[itsmoked]

yourtaxesatwork; I am not very clear with your question but if you are looking for a Cad package to work with, look at Intellicad. It is an autocad look alike that costs $50 to $300 bucks. $300 bucks gets you the source code so you could build something into it and "know" the basic engine is not going to change until you want or let it. (Unlike dang AutoCad that changes hourly always requiring a huge amount of screwing around.)

Here is the 'dry' site. There are many other sites that are more lucid and where you can download the demo system.

http://www.intellicad.org/default-net6.asp

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com