Homebrew PCBs

most Autorouters (the ones i have seen) are not capable of exchanging 
> functional equal groups of pins (imagine a 74xx logic gate with 6 
equal 
> parts).
> they are also not capable of placing the parts in a sensible way 
(the 
> autoplacers
> i have seen were either unadjusted or simply nonsense...)
> 
> come on, Davel, have you never took a pcb, looked at either the 
component 
> side
> or the solder side and thought "wow that's beautiful"?
> 
> (or maybe looked at one and thought "that's ugly"?)
> 
> I find there is a great deal of art in pcb making.
> 
> But like with any other art there are no rules to get it perfect.
> Some are making good pcbs which are simply the smallest possible.
> Some arrange the components nicely, makes the routing a bit more 
> complicated
> but a pcb where the resistors are not aligned simply looks not so 
good (for 
> me).
> If you look at the solder side in my opinion a good pcb is one with 
each 
> track
> going the best possibleway, as straight as possible, and properly 
aligned 
> with the other tracks. (On timing sensitive Boards meander are an 
exclusion 
> to "shortest path)
> 
> 
> I don't like art very much, i spend no time looking at pictures or 
> listening
> to music, this simply doesn't interest me... but there is a 
difference
> between a pcb which was made in a hurry with autorouter and a pcb 
which was 
> make
> by a skillful person investing some time.
> 
> I think it is more art than some things todays "artists" make...
> but that's only the opinion of someone who doesn't know much about 
art..
> 
> Hope you can see the art in some of the next pcbs you get hold of.
> 
> regards
> stefan

I know what you mean.

I have been practicing with QCad for a few weeks now and have come to 
the conclusiton that I just input all the components, spread them out 
a lot, then autoroute.  I get a MESS !

Then I LOOK at the components and the board and figure out where I 
want the connections and some of the major components.  move them 
around then autoroute again.

then I go back and move all the related parts like caps and resistors 
so they line up better.  

I do find that you can place an LED in one of 4 directions, 3 of 
which will cause traces to go off into odd directions and not 'flow'  
ditto for resisrs and caps.

I move those type around until the traces are shorter and the lines 
more straight.

When it is done, I have forced the autoroute to put traces where I 
want them to a large degree and the board looks better.

I have a board that looks like heck as all of one side of the PIC 
pins were connected to things on the opposite side of the board and 
all the pins on the other side had to weave themselves around.  very 
cluttered.

Dave