Homebrew PCBs

"Steve Wiseman" <sjwiseman@...> writes:
> I occasionally dip into gEDA, but never convince myself (yet) that I
> can get a serious project out of the other end without a massive
> amount of effort - and, in my experience, effort = errors.

Well, at least it can be done - I've seen a number of really complex
boards get done with it.  All the developers are users too, and we're
actively working on it these days.

> Trustable libraries matter, too

Yup.  There are a couple of gEDA users that only use their own
libraries.  We've talked (recently) about dumping the current
libraries and starting from scratch, with more control and design, and
less "this looks good!" ;-)

> Some of the macros you'd want to improve yield as far as possible
> aren't built-in, since they're tactics you wouldn't want to be using
> for real.

Like?

Me, I have a teardrop plugin for PCB (gEDA) that I use on all my
boards, home etched or otherwise.  I had one board's trace break right
at the annulus while reworking a connector, and decided I didn't want
to have to debug that again.