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I am an Eagle user for some time.
But if somebody asks some info about any product, he wants of course to know
about the advantages, but I think he wants to be aware of the inconveniences.
So after advantages, I will focus mostly on inconveniences.
THE GOOD:
- There is a free version, unlimited in time, but limited to 2 layers. This version
allows you to make 50 x 100 mm 2-layers boards.
- There are a lot of free libraries
THE BAD:
- The libraries are provide on a voluntary basis, which means that you can have
the best and the worst. They are sometimes redundant.
- Suppose you want to create a library. You create the symbol and then the
package, which is good. However, if you need a standard package, there is no
way to reuse an existing one, you have to create it locally. For instance, you want
to add a FET transistor in SOT23 package. There is no way (at least no way I am
aware of) to reuse the existing SOT23. You can copy it from another library, but
this means that there are myriads of SOT23 defined in various libraries.
- The graphical interface is really not user-friendly, and here are a few examples
to give you an idea.
Example1 Moving an object
In most of the object-based drawing programs (for instance powerpoint),
if you want to move an object, you click it and you drag it. It will stay at the
point where you have released the mouse, and that's it.
Now the eagle way:
1. Select the move tool
2. Do the above operation.
If you don't select, then you do nothing. Well, this is only one extra operation,
but simply annoying.
Example 2. Moving a group of objects.
Let's take again the powerpoint example. If you want to move a group of objects,
you click the start point of the selection rectangle, and you select all the objects
you want. When you release the mouse, all the objects inside of the rectangle
will be selected, and then you can move them like a single object (see above).
Now the eagle way:
Suppose you want to move one selection of objects by 1 grid only.
Usually in this case, you don't want your selection to move more than necessary.
Here is what happens. I just made a fake board with a repeated component.
I want to move it by 1 grid, about 3~4mm on my screen.
1. Choose the selection tool (gray in the vertical left tool bar)
2. Chose what you want to move:
3. Choose the move tool:
4. Right-click what you have selected. A popup menu appeads
5. Choose Move Group at the bottom:
6. Once you have selected, your selection has moved by the height of the
contextual menu... which is probably not what you want.
- Beside this, there are also many other issues. For exemple, if you want
to choose the layers you want to display, a good thing is that as soon as
you click on a given level, it shows up or disappear. In Eagle, there is a
popup window for layer choice. But the window you are working in is
not refreshed until you click "ok". The popup disappear and the window
is refreshed.
- There is no way to change the preferences other than making a preferences
sheet with a text editor. No "save preferences" for Inch / mm.
- When you select mm for the units, you could expect to have line width
in mm (0.1, 0.15, 0.2, etc...). When you convert to millimeters, the widths
become: 0.254, 0.3048, ... 0.8128, etc... basically they are still in multiples
of 0.001 inch.
So in conclusion, I would say that the overall functionality is fair for the price.
But even if you start "zen" in the morning, I can tell you that at the end of the
day your blood pressure will climb and you will start saying weird things
about the Holly Mother.
Hi do you guys know where I can find some one that can help me. I 'm looking for some that can design a pcb board that will trigger a camera slave flash basicaly i'm looking for someone that can help me and desing a slave flash board I'm willing to pay for your time I'm to old to start learning this.
or maybe you guys can guideme to the right direction to finding someone.
Thank you
Simple answer: there isn't "the best" PCB package. I've worked with Orcad, Tango (both since DOS mode was available only) Protel, Eagle, Pads and I didn't found any one of these which could be cleary defined better than other.
Pads is relatively good for high density board (2000 to 6000 connections, more than 1500 vias, more than 6 layers), Eagle is perfect for small designs on two or four layers but definitely without BGA. Orcad is the best for editing schematics but not for PCB routing.
And so on.
I want to design microstrip antenna using PCB technology. Can any of the software draw the layout? No electronic component is to be used so no need of routing. (and no need of simulation).
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