[Lab] Suggestions for EDA Suite?

[Andrew Plumb]

Be careful using the "free" version of EAGLE because the license limits your use of the fruits of your labour to non-commercial applications only.

As it relates to FLOSS, there's also KiCAD: http://www.kicad-eda.org/

I haven't had any luck building in on Mac OS X (yet) so I haven't tried it, but others find it more user-friendly than gEDA.

Andrew.

On 2010-11-19, at 10:56 AM, Andrew O'Malley wrote:

> I'd recommend Eagle, though the freeware version has a limited board
> size (3 x 4" I believe) so it depends on your board size.
> 
> Though I haven't used it, I've hearing more about the gEDA suite
> (Linux / MAC only): http://www.gpleda.org/index.html
> 
> ao.
> 
> 
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 10:44 AM, Tom Burns <tom.i.burns at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Have you used EAGLE PCB at all?
>> 
>> Not sure the PCB sizes you need but for hobbiest sizes/number of layers it's
>> cheap, works cross-platform, and has a large part library.  Also a lot of
>> hobbiest vendors like SparkFun or communities like Adafruit have their own
>> component libraries released as EAGLE libraries.
>> 
>> www.cadsoftusa.com
>> 
>> Tom
>> 
>> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Paul & Andrea Mumby <themumbys at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hey everyone! I've been using Proteus for my EDA suite for the past few
>>> years now, and I'm comfortable with it and it works ok for me... But it's
>>> beginning to get a bit dated. The component libraries are lacking, and it's
>>> lacking gerber output capability for PCB designs (making it difficult to
>>> have things professionaly done).
>>> So can anyone recommend a solid EDA suite that fits (at least most of) the
>>> following requirements:
>>> - Reasonably Affordable
>>> - Schematic Capture & PCB Design, with netlist exporting from schematic
>>> app. (or both features integrated in one, don't really care)
>>> - Large component library for both schematic capture and PCB app, (or at
>>> least industry standard expandable library so that it doesn't get outdated
>>> too quickly)
>>> - Basic schematic simulation capability (SPICE or equivalent)
>>> - Would be nice if PCB design app supports 3D renderings of boards (for
>>> visualizing layout before prototyping)
>>> - Gerber output capabilities
>>> - Fairly accepted standard, so that I won't have much trouble sharing
>>> files back and forth with the community.
>>> Any suggestions would be appreciated. If nothing suitable is out there
>>> within my price range, I might just stick with Proteus. But I figured it's
>>> worth exploring at this point. Have some new projects on the go that could
>>> benefit from a new EDA suite.
>>> Thanks!
>>> - Paul
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lab mailing list
>>> Lab at artengine.ca
>>> http://artengine.ca/mailman/listinfo/lab
>>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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