Re: gEDA suite vs my creaky old Protel Client 3.5?

Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott <j.michael.elliottAT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
: I'm curious to know how the gEDA suite stacks up against what I'm using.
: Two-sided boards with surface-mount and through-hole, no integration
: with simulation needed. Hierarchal schematics. Detailed BOMs. Get me
: elected Queen of the May if I wish. Just basic stuff.

It depends upon what you want to do. For basic designing of two layer
boards, gEDA works quite well. Four is also doable. PCB tops out at
6 layers, so it's not meant for large or complex projects. It has
most features of low-end commercial EDA packages, without being
crippled or limited to arbitrarily small designs (like freeware
Eagle). OTOH, it does lack a couple of features present in commercial
tools.

I use gEDA to bang out quick-'n-dirty test boards at work. Here's a 2
layer sensor interface board.

http://www.brorson.com/MVC-727S_anonymous.JPG

It's nothing exciting, but you can see gEDA/PCB is able to handle all
types of components (SMT and through-hole).

I also have done private projects using the gEDA Suite. No photos
now, however. Sorry!

Here's the current gEDA project of the month: a binary clock.

http://www.pencilfarm.org/bclock.html

The guy doing this project also has some words of advice for those
thinking about using gEDA; give his site a read.

You will need to invest a little time in re-drawing your
symbols & redoing your footprint libarary, but many of this already
comes with the gEDA Suite. You don't get as many canned symbols and
footprints as with commercial EDA packages, but most real users
generate their own symbols and footprints anyway.

Through hole & SMT stuff is a cinch. Hierarchy does work, but
hierarchical bus support is still lacking. Therefore, if you
absolutely need hierarchical busses, look elsewhere -- or join us in
hacking/improving gEDA!

As for BOMs and attribute management, I like to think that between the
various BOM backends for gnetlist and using gattrib (the attribute
manager) you will be very content.

A missing piece is backannotation from PCB to gschem. Therefore, if
you make changes to your connectivity in PCB (e.g. gate swapping), you
will need to manually update your schematic.

Why not download the CD and try it out? The download is free, and the
CD makes installation easy -- if you have a Linux box.

Finally, I'd bet that if you post your question on the gEDA-user list,
you'd get more reactions and photos from people using the suite. The
mailing lists are here:

http://www.geda.seul.org/mailinglist/index.html

Stuart

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Schematic Entry Tools? (from: Silly Resistor Values)
    ... We had a discusion on the gEDA group about this and fixing this problem ... I'm very surprised to hear it, usually it's Windows users I find who are unreasonable. ... Probably quite good for FPGA and ASIC designs because the hierarchy in gschem does seem to work well. ... Either gEDA remains a boutique app under Linux and never makes it into mainstream or a "fork" develops and a Windows port pretty much permanently loses compatibility with the Linux distros. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Schematic Entry Tools? (from: Silly Resistor Values)
    ... Hardly a show stopper when it is GPL'd and almost no cost? ... We had a discusion on the gEDA group about this and fixing this problem ... Only people who use cracked versions generate DRM problems. ... Yet gEDA which has a very capable hierarchy, ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Schematic Entry Tools? (from: Silly Resistor Values)
    ... and Allegro back-end compatibility (this is negotiable, ... Hardly a show stopper when it is GPL'd and almost no cost? ... equals money, you will have the time, because gEDA is Free. ... Yet gEDA which has a very capable hierarchy, ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
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