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Circuit design software

Started by Rx7man, January 21, 2017, 12:29:43 AM

Rx7man

I've been playing around designing circuits.. haven't found something I really liked yet.. didn't like Eagle... then used Mouser Multisim for a while.. that was OK, the circuit analysis was great, but a lot of the parts don't have models...

Now I've been trying Circuitmaker, which seems to be semi-online and has a pretty good parts database, and parts searchability has some improvements over Multisim... Not sold on it yet, but it's full featured and completely free.. which is kinda nice
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

Just get used to eagle and design your own library for parts that it doesn't have from the white papers
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

Rx7man

That's a bloody PITA too though
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

It's future proof and pretty much the industry standard... lol
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

Rx7man

I just find footprint libraries hard to come by.. seems like you gotta draw out the pads for every component even though there's millions of other components with the same footprint
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

Well that's the cool part once you're done you're done, it isn't that complicated to make pads... I just start at 0, make a copy of a pad, then offset each one the spacing

Then grab everything as a group and then center the pads over the 0 so its centered.. then draw lines around it. Honestly takes about 15 minutes to make something, if it doesn't truly exist
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

Rx7man

There should just be a footprint library.. it's stupid to have to redraw a DIP-8 every time you need to add one.. of course those are the easy ones, but the idea is the same
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

Rx7man

I just got Eagle 8... I don't know how anyone can tolerate that damn program.. I'm tearing my hair out after using it for an hour
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

Rx7man

'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

#9
lol don't use 8, use 7.7
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

Rx7man

I just downloaded KiCAD... will give that a try and see how I like it
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

Rx7man

Just briefly tried Kicad... other than an ass-backward mousewheel zoom, it seems good so far... has separate files for the footprint of a device, which is precisely what was lacking elsewhere... just search QSOP16 and there it is

I saved Eagle for future reference as well :)
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

Best get used to eagle :) it's what everyone and their mom uses, just avoid the whole 8.0 thing.. that's new I guess since the last time I turned it on

Pretty much all the libraries you find are for eagle, like seeedstudio's shields etc
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.

Rx7man

Theres no footprint or layer limit in Kicad though.. and since I do have Mega projects to build, it is nice
'94 dually,  67/67 HE351VE, NV5600, ~600hp
'93 ECLB 47RH, new toy truck, H pump project, 1000hp goal, 300K miles
93 XCLB auto, bone stock, 350K miles
93 XCLB 5spd, bone stock, 100K miles

hakcenter

Kicad is, erk... almost impossible to work with.

I've sat down, and stared at it, look bruh I just want a simple rats nest can't you do that for me, LOL

Eagle it just depends, if you honestly end up buying it, you can remove the limitations... of course there are other ways...
TS2009 Deḇarim 8:2
"And you shall remember that יהוה your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.