Re: Good freeware circuit drawing program


"JeffM" <jeffm_@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:4fdc1f89-27cb-4945-a2a6-2ae84d5e3dce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tim Wescott wrote:
Eagle isn't open source, but there's a free trial version
that'll let you do A size schematics and 3 x 4 inch boards.
Upgrades to "paid" versions are inexpensive,
and it's a currently supported project.

Those who advocate for EAGLE (properly written in all caps),
http://www.google.com/search?q=Easily.Applicable.Graphical.Layout.Editor
should also mention its DRM, implemented in recent versions,
which CAN LOCK YOU OUT OF YOUR WORK PRODUCT.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.embedded/browse_frm/thread/f794e82d26b59e18/d7cf4149edb93ac7?q=*-*-website+reuse+paying.*+*-I-will-switch+cracked-*+*.would.not.help.*+zzz+after-*-*-version-*+copied+*.*.unlock.*.designs+*-*-*-*-exchange-*-*-*-*-third-party+reused+qq+*-*-single-bit-*-*-*-*+useless+*-*-*-projects-could-no-longer-be-opened
news:1jisj25b43ucaddcu7sm9n82i8sk98v2ut@xxxxxxx

I tried this just now (since I use the free EAGLE for small personal boards; saves spending ages hacking around footprints in gEDA), and they seem to have dropped this approach, at least to some degree. I'm currently using 5.2.0, and a bit of Googling netted me 4.16R2 plus a keygen. The generated key appeared to work fine in 4.16R2 (no longer dimensionally limited in the PCB editor), but schematics/boards generated by this version *worked fine* when loaded into 5.2.0. To check to make sure I wasn't doing anything silly, I hunted down EAGLE 4.11e plus a keygen, and the schematics from this version were flagged by 4.16R2 but *not* 5.2.0.

So it looks like they might have backpedalled on this issue. Or I may just have got lucky. I wouldn't recommend on relying on this behaviour though.

I'm actually in the process of buying the standard version for work, so this is actually quite useful information. I'll try and get an proper statment out of them about whether this is still the case or not. If they still do it (or if they won't give an answer), I'm definately backing out of the order - if it stuffs up any of the layouts, I'm the one who'll cop the flak for recommending it. Much safer to go with gEDA, which worst case just makes things take a little longer.

[...]
What Cadsoft's app *does* have is forward- and backward-annotation,
which is handy if you want to make PCBs.

Yup, this is the one thing I miss in gEDA and the like. I don't really use the backward annotation that much (and could do without it), but the forward annotation makes revision cycles shorter. Not to mention that it's a lot easier to get gEDA/PCB out of sync than EAGLE.

I don't know how EAGLE would fare on a bigger project, since I've only got the free version. However, I suspect that limitations in the PCB side (length matching is difficult, differential pairs even more so, for example) would bite before the layout editor would.

--
Michael Brown
Add michael@ to emboss.co.nz ---+--- My inbox is always open

.

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