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I haven’t tried LibrePCB, but I should really give it a go. Designing PCBs can be fun and useful when hacking around electronics. I know my way around Eagle, b
by brirec 4y ago
I haven’t tried LibrePCB, but I should really give it a go. Designing PCBs can be fun and useful when hacking around electronics.
I know my way around Eagle, but the free version is way too restricted and I can’t justify spending that kind of money when it’s a hobby that I poke a few times a year. But I also have had a hard time getting into Kicad for the same reason — a few months ago I wanted to make a board for a project and I decided to give KiCad another try, and after not making much progress over a long period of time I ended up downloading Eagle and dealing with the limitations.
I guess my rambly point is, EDA software has phenomenally bad UI in my experience that takes a lot of time and effort (and reading, not just poking around!) to learn, and I really would love to see something that could flip that trend without itself being overly limiting.
- bart__ 4y agoTotally contra to this project, but relevant for your point. I found EasyEDA, developed by the people from JLCPCB, to be very easy to use for hobbiest boards. Their integration with their SMT assembly service was also pretty neat for my usecase
- app4soft 4y agoJFTR, LibrePCB Fab[0] service provides integration with few PCB manufacturers. [0] https://librepcb.org/blog/2022-09-08_partnership_with_pcbway/ https://librepcb.org/blog/2022-09-08_partnership_with_pcbway...
- brirec 4y agoThis sounds better to me than EasyEDA since I don’t want to be _stuck_ with JLCPCB (though a friend uses them and I’ve really only heard good things about them, so I’ll probably use them for my next project anyway…) Does EasyEDA lock you into JLCPCB? I don’t have anything against partnering with fab houses since it can really help accelerate the project, but I feel a little weird about using something that’s so deeply tied to another product that I “don’t need.” I feel like I should give EasyEDA a chance though either way, because it can’t be worse than Fritzing.
- eulgro 4y agoWhat's wrong with KiCad?
- thenthenthen 4y agoThere is is some trouble with ordering smt service from jlc directly from kicad. But you can just import kicad into easyeda and export for production. Annoying extra step anyway. Kicad ftw
- folmar 4y agoThere is no lock-in. The only connection from the user perspective is one-click ordering without downloading and uploading gerbers.
- LeifCarrotson 4y agoA few months ago, you would have been on Kicad 6 (assuming you didn't pull some ancient 5.0 release from your distro), which I've found to have a great UI. Like all EDA software, the UI is optimized for power users, and therefore has some quirks and a learning curve for the hotkeys, but I would not say that Kicad is phenomenally bad. Work your way through one tutorial (eg. this recent one: https://youtu.be/aVUqaB0IMh4 https://youtu.be/aVUqaB0IMh4) and make a quick-reference note for shortcuts, and you can probably be off to the races.
- rowanG077 4y agoI don't agree. Just a few weeks ago I taught two people, who had 0 PCB design skills, the basics in KiCAD. The first PCB designed by one of them is currently being produced. It was incredibly easy to teach and didn't take more then 45 minutes.
- MrsPeaches 4y agoHigh recommend the Digikey tutorial for KiCad as well: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEBQazB0HUyR24ckSZ5u05TZHV9khgA1O https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEBQazB0HUyR24ckSZ5u05T...