I wish Microsoft would write a CAD program.
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There. I said it. Microsoft is good at creating visual designers. They just are. Now, we've all complained about them, but we all use them (or rather, many of us do) because the alternatives are so much worse. I've been wrestling with EAGLE trying to build a schematic, and whoever designed it broke every possible rule of good UI design and maybe a few that haven't been written yet. Using it is like having your teeth pulled. And I think back to Visio, as much as I hated it, it was so much better than this. :sigh:
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Agreed. As long as MS continue to support it after I've clawed my way up the learning curve. I use Fusion 360 with a hobbyist license. It's getting much better with each release, but they keep moving features out of the free license into the paid license. Also, some of the folks that pay are complaining that you now have to pay for some of the analysis features as a service. Most of the analysis tools used to run locally. I used Blender in the past but switched to Fusion360 for the drawing and drafting features, but Blender now has more engineering features. I may switch back if Fusion360 continues to paywall more features. Sad, though, since the learning curve for Fusion360 is so steep.
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It would need to be able to load common electronics component models, including schematics. Most 3D cad programs can't do schematics, and then routing based on that.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
I haven't tried DesignSpark, but some like it. An other possibility(s) is the software from the board house. I used ExpressPCB several years back - poor software but simple for the small thing I was doing - their 3 boards 2" x 3" deal worked for me. ( But I only needed 7 LEDs, terminal strips and stuff, no logic ICs. ) ( Also, I needed to have the board match the enclosure top ( a Rose & Bopla cast Al box - you need an HMI for 6 spindle multiples? IR, Bosch, Copco... ? ) so some component placement was dictated by panel design. ) There's at least 2 other places with their own software and I expect the software has gotten better. Better than breadboards, ( Oh, I really like my Hakko iron. And the PanaVise. ) Have fun. dave
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I case you don't know the story behind it, Eagle was designed by a German company (CadSoft). On principle, I stay away from German designed UI and Eagle was just one more example why I should follow this rule. Now it is part of AutoDesk and it is slowly integrated with Fusion360. It's getting better but still has a way to go. There are alternatives out there but once you've made you parts library, switching is more difficult.
Mircea
In my opinion , I am obviously opinionated and basing few of my onions on long and well paid carrier of "quality assurance". Actually making sure the product does what it advertises and is user friendly. As far as Eagle goes - I have been using it for many years - as a hobbyist. I really do not understand how such versatile ( as far as hardware components libraries ) product has such awful "navigation concept". I have pointed out to the vendor, few years back, that switching from layout to schematic needs improvement... but I do like theirs "autorouter".
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Sweet, nice to hear about a fellow Kicad user! I haven't designed a full board yet, but am toying with it. It's nice! What was your project? Any links?
Mine is a device which monitors room temperature, saves to SD card if chosen (button pressed or selected via bluetooth) and will report info back over bluetooth. Here's an older tweet (ala twitter) that shows the schematic: https://twitter.com/raddevus/status/1428800395627876359[^] The device has an oled screen, bluetooth module, tmp36 (for getting temperature), uses an atmega4809 and has a realtime clock -- so you can know temp at specific times.
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In my opinion , I am obviously opinionated and basing few of my onions on long and well paid carrier of "quality assurance". Actually making sure the product does what it advertises and is user friendly. As far as Eagle goes - I have been using it for many years - as a hobbyist. I really do not understand how such versatile ( as far as hardware components libraries ) product has such awful "navigation concept". I have pointed out to the vendor, few years back, that switching from layout to schematic needs improvement... but I do like theirs "autorouter".
Well, I have some sympathy for CadSoft/AutoDesk. Maintaining an old and successful product requires difficult compromises between modernizing the product and not alienating old users. -- WARNING - Long story only somewhat related to subject --- There is a story, most probably just a legend, about an experiment where researchers put 5 monkeys in a cage and a banana up on a branch. Every time a monkey would climb to get the banana the other monkeys would get a cold shower. Soon enough every time a monkey would climb on the branch, the other monkeys would start beating the intrepid even without the cold showers. In the end no monkey would dare to climb on the branch. In the next phase, the researchers started replacing monkeys form the original group with new ones and every time a new monkey would try to climb up the branch to pick up the banana, the other monkeys would start beating it. Soon there were no monkeys from the original group, however every time a monkey would go up the branch it would get beaten because "that's the way we do things around here". Getting back to Eagle, it started at a time when Hercules graphics cards were the pinnacle of resolution and the hardware limitations were atrocious. Updating the product without annoying old users and having them move to a competitor is not that simple.
Mircea
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Mine is a device which monitors room temperature, saves to SD card if chosen (button pressed or selected via bluetooth) and will report info back over bluetooth. Here's an older tweet (ala twitter) that shows the schematic: https://twitter.com/raddevus/status/1428800395627876359[^] The device has an oled screen, bluetooth module, tmp36 (for getting temperature), uses an atmega4809 and has a realtime clock -- so you can know temp at specific times.
Sweet project! I've been meaning to make one of these myself for my garage. You selling these?
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There. I said it. Microsoft is good at creating visual designers. They just are. Now, we've all complained about them, but we all use them (or rather, many of us do) because the alternatives are so much worse. I've been wrestling with EAGLE trying to build a schematic, and whoever designed it broke every possible rule of good UI design and maybe a few that haven't been written yet. Using it is like having your teeth pulled. And I think back to Visio, as much as I hated it, it was so much better than this. :sigh:
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Actually, Microsoft bought Visio back in 2000 (I think) and then merged it into their system. I'd used pre-Microsoft versions of Visio but never bothered with the Microsoft version since my usage was rather infrequent.
They also bought VBA from Summit But they improved on those things.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
-
There. I said it. Microsoft is good at creating visual designers. They just are. Now, we've all complained about them, but we all use them (or rather, many of us do) because the alternatives are so much worse. I've been wrestling with EAGLE trying to build a schematic, and whoever designed it broke every possible rule of good UI design and maybe a few that haven't been written yet. Using it is like having your teeth pulled. And I think back to Visio, as much as I hated it, it was so much better than this. :sigh:
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
EAGLE 7 was the last best version, after Autodesk took it on they butchered the licensing and made the software almost impossible to use offline. I would recommend KICAD, bit of a learning curve but worth it, another popular one is EASYEDA.
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I case you don't know the story behind it, Eagle was designed by a German company (CadSoft). On principle, I stay away from German designed UI and Eagle was just one more example why I should follow this rule. Now it is part of AutoDesk and it is slowly integrated with Fusion360. It's getting better but still has a way to go. There are alternatives out there but once you've made you parts library, switching is more difficult.
Mircea
Ah, yes! Anything in German is with the verb at the end designed, so before the sentence to understand can, you must the entire sentence in a mental buffer place.
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Ah, yes! Anything in German is with the verb at the end designed, so before the sentence to understand can, you must the entire sentence in a mental buffer place.
:laugh: Yoda surely German ancestors he had.
Mircea
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I gave up on Eagle and instead went to Kicad. Kicad seems to work much easier -- for me. I had never used a CAD type of program before and Kicad got me all the way to a complete PCB which I sent to oshkosh and had manufactured. try it, it's free: KiCad EDA - Schematic Capture & PCB Design Software[^]
I absolutely agree. I have already used KiCad for several professional project and every time I obtained a perfect PCB at the first attempt - which was not always the case when I used Eagle. I admit that initially the name KiCad made me think of a hobby-oriented software, but KiCad is much more than that (its development was supported by CERN, and now it is a really powerful CAD).
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Ah, yes! Anything in German is with the verb at the end designed, so before the sentence to understand can, you must the entire sentence in a mental buffer place.
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There. I said it. Microsoft is good at creating visual designers. They just are. Now, we've all complained about them, but we all use them (or rather, many of us do) because the alternatives are so much worse. I've been wrestling with EAGLE trying to build a schematic, and whoever designed it broke every possible rule of good UI design and maybe a few that haven't been written yet. Using it is like having your teeth pulled. And I think back to Visio, as much as I hated it, it was so much better than this. :sigh:
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
My first post. And LMMFAO, Microsoft creating CAD software???!!!???!!! Oh hell no! Microsoft would end up with a product that would be bloated beyond the worst bloated ROMs for Android devices ending with the BSOD. We are in desperate need of high-end engineering/analysis software for Linux. I don't care about the flavor of said Linux distro, just a rewrite of SolidWorks. Is this asking too much???!!!???!!!???!!! Before anyone types/posts, I'm very much aware of the amount of work that goes into developing software especially high-end parametric modelers and optimization/analysis stuff... ~jp