[sdiy] PCB Pool CAD software: Target 3001

[Neil Johnson]

Hi Tim,

> By the way, you could of course ask your questions on the
> sci.electronics.cad newsgroup (?)

True, but here the S/N ratio is very high, and more likely to here from
people with a similar mindset (synth design and construction).

For previous projects, I have used a hooky copy of Protel for Windows (PCB
2.5) which is really good (the later versions got progressively worse).
For schematics I am seriously tempted by "DesignWorks" for Mac:

	http://www.capilano.com/

Expensive, but looks very good.  Need to try out the demo.

> I was keeping on eye on this thread, and when I saw this, my ears pricked
> up! I got very close to downloading the trial version myself a day or two
> ago, but when I saw the PCB size limit on the cheapest version, realised
> this was probably too small for what I want, and was put off by the price
> for the next one up, so I didn't bother in the end.

What size board are you thinking of doing?  Also depends on what sort of
technology you are planning on using: analogue, digital, RF,
surface-mount, harsh-environment, commercial product, etc.

My main requirements are small-to-medium size (one Eurocard),
double-sided, through-hole where possible (although considering SM as a
future option).

As for Eagle, so far I have been doing schematic capture, and while it has
its quirks (especially making library parts) it seems nicer than Target,
at least for entering schematics.  I have yet to move on to the PCB stage,
and might try both (a) going straight into Eagle PCB, and (b) trying to
import the netlist into Protel and use that (more for familiarity of tool,
and to see whether it is possible).

> But, I could be persuaded if I had some idea of how good it is - since I
> have zippo experience of this sort of thing, it is hard for me to decide
> whether one package is better than the other, so thoughts from the likes
> of yourself would be very interesting to hear! Please let me know how
> you get on!

Several (I won't use "many" as some here could claim that my "many" is
shorter than their "many" :-) years ago I was involved in spec'ing out
some CAD tools for the small consultancy group I was employed in at the
time.  The best set of tools we came up with was Protel for design, and
PSpice for simulation.  The convincing point was that both Protel and
PSpice demos talked to each other seemlessly (draw schematic in Protel,
export to PSpice, run simulation, import results back into Protel).

That would have been around 1994/5.  From more recent comments it would
seem that Protel has gone downhill since then.

For a reasonable summary of current Schematic and PCB software check out
the page at PCBPool:

	http://www.pcbpool.com/html_uk/uk_service_1.htm

This seems quite complete.  In particular, they differentiate between the
packages whose output they directly support, and everyone else (handy if
you think you'll be using their service).

Hope this helps,
Neil

--
Neil Johnson :: Computer Laboratory :: University of Cambridge ::
http://www.njohnson.co.uk          http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~nej22
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