Lil' Blackbox

General => Hardware => Topic started by: Rx7man on January 21, 2017, 12:29:43 AM

Title: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 21, 2017, 12:29:43 AM
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
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: hakcenter on January 21, 2017, 07:56:27 AM
Just get used to eagle and design your own library for parts that it doesn't have from the white papers
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 21, 2017, 11:08:43 PM
That's a bloody PITA too though
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: hakcenter on January 22, 2017, 06:17:01 AM
It's future proof and pretty much the industry standard... lol
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 22, 2017, 01:55:02 PM
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
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: hakcenter on January 22, 2017, 03:17:55 PM
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
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 22, 2017, 06:38:19 PM
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
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 22, 2017, 11:11:31 PM
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
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 23, 2017, 02:29:21 PM
This just came up...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U8he-5Bqtw&feature=em-subs_digest
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: hakcenter on January 24, 2017, 06:09:56 PM
lol don't use 8, use 7.7
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 25, 2017, 01:00:42 AM
I just downloaded KiCAD... will give that a try and see how I like it
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 25, 2017, 01:49:52 AM
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 :)
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: hakcenter on January 25, 2017, 10:03:15 AM
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
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 25, 2017, 01:31:52 PM
Theres no footprint or layer limit in Kicad though.. and since I do have Mega projects to build, it is nice
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: hakcenter on January 28, 2017, 07:02:01 PM
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...
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: Rx7man on January 29, 2017, 10:48:50 AM
I've applied the "other ways" as well in the past.

I really like the UI in Multisim, things work very nicely, but it does have a a component limit in the free version of about 65 devices.. when you start putting jumpers, caps and resistors that very quickly becomes a distinct restriction that I've already hit!
Title: Re: Circuit design software
Post by: llamajwc on October 04, 2018, 09:31:36 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35YuILUlfGs