Homebrew PCBs

Hi Mark,
Welcome to the art and science of PC board making!  There have been
several threads on DipTrace and EAGLE since I've been in the group,
which is probably about 7 or 8 months now.  Search on those terms, and
you will turn up a lot of information to help with your learning curve.

I've been using EAGLE Lite for quite awhile, and I've made several
custom parts.  The process is slightly easier in DipTrace, and the
tutorial is very clear, with the exception of mis-identifying the
program to make the schematic symbol.  I'm currently learning DipTrace
and building libraries in it as well.

DipTrace has a whole bunch of discrete components, but sometimes a
pretty generic transistor will appear only in the different
manufacturers' libraries.  IMHO, the thing to do is to assemble a
custom library with your commonly used parts.  EAGLE has a lot more
user-contributed libraries.

Good luck!

Ted

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Mark Mickelsen"
<mark.mickelsen@...> wrote:
>
> H.E.P.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks again for helping a newbie.  I'm going to look into Eagle.  It
> certainly has bigger libraries than what I've been using.  At first
blush,
> they seem to be pretty hard to understand and find the discretes you're
> looking for, but I'm going to give it a shot.  Maybe its output
modes will
> solve some of my problems.  I'll be very interested to hear what you
have to
> say about DipTrace.  I'm currently using WinQcad and like it a lot,
but it
> does have a few little hangups, like this output thing.  I'll have
to pay
> $150 to get the extra help I need on that one, and I think I'll
explore some
> others before I do that.
> 
> Thanks again.  It's guys like you that make it worth it to be a part
of this
> site.
> 
> Mark 

>