4 ms·

Not surprised. This guarantees Kicad all day long for hobby hackers going forward. In other news, the "free" version of their Fusion 360 loses functionality t

Not surprised. This guarantees Kicad all day long for hobby hackers going forward. In other news, the "free" version of their Fusion 360 loses functionality to the paid version on a regular basis. Wonder if it will suffer a similar fate, or if the free version will end up to forever suffer as some emaciated skeleton of the real app.

userbinator 3y ago
This guarantees Kicad all day long for hobby hackers going forward. Based on what I see in the Chinese electronics communities, pirated Altium seems to be quite popular too.
- samtho 3y ago
  I work with random vendors from Ali Express, I do have to say there has been a growing number of them giving me zipped KiCAD files with edit histories indicating they likely used it to develop the project on.
  - fortysixdegrees 3y ago
    That sounds fascinating... How do you end up with AliExpress vendors sending you EDA?
    - samtho 3y ago
      I just ask. It’s usually for dev boards for newly produced ICs that they are selling and there are no published reference designs yet.
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  Judging by the footprints/models I come across (from real companies doing 10M+ part volumes annually), there appears to be an entire society built around Altium Designer 2009 and educational licenses of Solidworks.
- bsder 3y ago
  I suspect not anymore. The big advantage that Altium had for a while was that they were an available, portable format for parts libraries. Everybody was producing and giving away their symbol libraries in Altium format so you could always take whatever design you were given, extract the parts, fix any bugs or weirdness, and get on with life. Since those libraries accompanied the design, you knew those parts symbols had been proven out on at least one real PCB somewhere. Then Altium went and closed those library formats so that you couldn't tear the parts out anymore. I dropped Altium right then, 100% for KiCad. I had already been doing about a quarter of my designs in KiCad, but I went all in when Altium did that.
SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
I just wish there was an actually free version of what Fusion360 offers. Even if it wasn’t nearly as good, like even half as good, it would be sufficient for hobby work. It’s just that to do anything remotely fancy there is simply no alternative. FreeCAD is just not even in the same league, sadly enough. The difference is so high that it’s not even worthwhile to discuss them together
- cocoflunchy 3y ago
  I use https://www.onshape.com/ https://www.onshape.com/ now which has a free version (for public files)
- fy20 3y ago
  3D printing is in the same boat. It seems the whole CAD industry just wants to shoot itself in the foot and push people towards open source tools. When I was into 3D printing 5 years ago I learnt Fusion 360 and it seemed like one of the better free-for-hobbyist tools, but even then it was buggy on Windows (didn't properly support 4K) and features were slowly being moved behind the premium paywall. SketchUp is also quite popular, but people stick to the old version that can be run offline, as the newer web based versions don't have the same features.
- ghostpepper 3y ago
  I think the governance of the freecad project has recently changed so I'm cautiously hopeful that it will finally start seeing some project management and UX love. https://lwn.net/Articles/924953/ https://lwn.net/Articles/924953/ https://ondsel.com/blog/freecad-approach-to-software-development-needs-to-change https://ondsel.com/blog/freecad-approach-to-software-develop...
  - MegaDeKay 3y ago
    I was unaware of this. Thanks for posting. This looks quite encouraging and I hope it takes the project to the next leve.
    - 3y ago
hospitalJail 3y ago
I've been burned with enough (temporarily) 'free' CAD software that I've finally made the permanent switch to FreeCAD. I am a huge fan and can easily recommend it. Maybe in the past, FreeCAD wasnt good, but today its just CAD software. Sure it might not have a wire harness tool that gives you a report about different wires, but I've used enough CATIA to know that CATIA doesnt work either. (maybe hyperbole, but basically Catia tools were so bad, my company ended up writing our own checks). Bonus points that there is already google indexed support for every question you can imagine. Can't say that about niche Catia stuff.
- adql 3y ago
  I'm still annoyed that doing simple "here is a hex hole, multiply it in 10x12 grid" takes so fucking long in FreeCAD...
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    Like, the time to develop it? Or the time to compute it? Because I did basically that with a parallelogram yesterday on a nvidia 3060 laptop(45*16=720 shapes) on a curve. It took like 5 minutes to compute it. No joke, I am afraid of this model and I was happy to export it as a .stl and move on.

userbinator 3y ago

This guarantees Kicad all day long for hobby hackers going forward. Based on what I see in the Chinese electronics communities, pirated Altium seems to be quite popular too.

samtho 3y ago
I work with random vendors from Ali Express, I do have to say there has been a growing number of them giving me zipped KiCAD files with edit histories indicating they likely used it to develop the project on.
- fortysixdegrees 3y ago
  That sounds fascinating... How do you end up with AliExpress vendors sending you EDA?
  - samtho 3y ago
    I just ask. It’s usually for dev boards for newly produced ICs that they are selling and there are no published reference designs yet.
InitialLastName 3y ago
Judging by the footprints/models I come across (from real companies doing 10M+ part volumes annually), there appears to be an entire society built around Altium Designer 2009 and educational licenses of Solidworks.
bsder 3y ago
I suspect not anymore. The big advantage that Altium had for a while was that they were an available, portable format for parts libraries. Everybody was producing and giving away their symbol libraries in Altium format so you could always take whatever design you were given, extract the parts, fix any bugs or weirdness, and get on with life. Since those libraries accompanied the design, you knew those parts symbols had been proven out on at least one real PCB somewhere. Then Altium went and closed those library formats so that you couldn't tear the parts out anymore. I dropped Altium right then, 100% for KiCad. I had already been doing about a quarter of my designs in KiCad, but I went all in when Altium did that.

SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago

I just wish there was an actually free version of what Fusion360 offers. Even if it wasn’t nearly as good, like even half as good, it would be sufficient for hobby work. It’s just that to do anything remotely fancy there is simply no alternative. FreeCAD is just not even in the same league, sadly enough. The difference is so high that it’s not even worthwhile to discuss them together

cocoflunchy 3y ago
I use https://www.onshape.com/ https://www.onshape.com/ now which has a free version (for public files)
fy20 3y ago
3D printing is in the same boat. It seems the whole CAD industry just wants to shoot itself in the foot and push people towards open source tools. When I was into 3D printing 5 years ago I learnt Fusion 360 and it seemed like one of the better free-for-hobbyist tools, but even then it was buggy on Windows (didn't properly support 4K) and features were slowly being moved behind the premium paywall. SketchUp is also quite popular, but people stick to the old version that can be run offline, as the newer web based versions don't have the same features.
ghostpepper 3y ago
I think the governance of the freecad project has recently changed so I'm cautiously hopeful that it will finally start seeing some project management and UX love. https://lwn.net/Articles/924953/ https://lwn.net/Articles/924953/ https://ondsel.com/blog/freecad-approach-to-software-development-needs-to-change https://ondsel.com/blog/freecad-approach-to-software-develop...
- MegaDeKay 3y ago
  I was unaware of this. Thanks for posting. This looks quite encouraging and I hope it takes the project to the next leve.
  - 3y ago

hospitalJail 3y ago

I've been burned with enough (temporarily) 'free' CAD software that I've finally made the permanent switch to FreeCAD. I am a huge fan and can easily recommend it. Maybe in the past, FreeCAD wasnt good, but today its just CAD software. Sure it might not have a wire harness tool that gives you a report about different wires, but I've used enough CATIA to know that CATIA doesnt work either. (maybe hyperbole, but basically Catia tools were so bad, my company ended up writing our own checks). Bonus points that there is already google indexed support for every question you can imagine. Can't say that about niche Catia stuff.

adql 3y ago
I'm still annoyed that doing simple "here is a hex hole, multiply it in 10x12 grid" takes so fucking long in FreeCAD...
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Like, the time to develop it? Or the time to compute it? Because I did basically that with a parallelogram yesterday on a nvidia 3060 laptop(45*16=720 shapes) on a curve. It took like 5 minutes to compute it. No joke, I am afraid of this model and I was happy to export it as a .stl and move on.