drkirkby
Full Member level 6
I've designed PCBs using a number of techniques from stencils on a light box, cheap software (Easy PC) to expensive software (PADs). But it is not something I have done much in recent years.
A colleague of mine has never designed or made a PCB and I'd like to show her the basics at least. We are going to get a trial of EM ADS for simulation purposes, and will have the EMPro option, but I was thinking of using that trial to show her the basics of PCB design. I'm wondering how useful ADS is for this. I know there is free software for PCB design, but I'd rather she had on her CV some experience using ADS rather than freeware.
I get the feeling ADS is not the best software for PCB layout, but having never used it, I wonder how good or bad it would be to introduce someone to PCB layout. What I'd like to do it:
1) Get her to draw a circuit diagram in ADS
2) Lay out the PCB
3) Simulate it
4) Get it made commercially from the Gerber files, or whatever the PCB manufacturers want nowadays.
We would be interested in simple RF boards, with patch antennas - not highly complex digital circuits, so the number of components will be quite small
Dave
A colleague of mine has never designed or made a PCB and I'd like to show her the basics at least. We are going to get a trial of EM ADS for simulation purposes, and will have the EMPro option, but I was thinking of using that trial to show her the basics of PCB design. I'm wondering how useful ADS is for this. I know there is free software for PCB design, but I'd rather she had on her CV some experience using ADS rather than freeware.
I get the feeling ADS is not the best software for PCB layout, but having never used it, I wonder how good or bad it would be to introduce someone to PCB layout. What I'd like to do it:
1) Get her to draw a circuit diagram in ADS
2) Lay out the PCB
3) Simulate it
4) Get it made commercially from the Gerber files, or whatever the PCB manufacturers want nowadays.
We would be interested in simple RF boards, with patch antennas - not highly complex digital circuits, so the number of components will be quite small
Dave