Newark Corp now owns Cadsoft

[JR.]

I saw this a while ago...I thought we talked about it in a thread here about free CAD software (maybe it was somewhere else).

It seems there is a new business model where Parts sellers, PCB fab houses, and contract MFRs, offer FREE PCB CAD to provide a portal for users into one stop shopping. The interest for Newark is obvious. If anything I expect an expanded capability freeware version of Eagle, tied to newark and their cartel of partners.

I half considered buying an upgrade to my old eagle license recently since I can't currently make smaller than 10 mil traces, and can't download newer footprints, while I can still roll pretty much whatever new footprints I need myself (so far), but the PCB technology is 6dB past 10 mil traces...

Not a big deal in my current generation design. I could maybe save a handful of vias with smaller traces, but stuff is getting smaller and smaller, and smaller ... I am curious to see if they change the capability of the eagle freeware version.

JR

[JR.]

I can make smaller than 10 mil traces (as filled rectangles) when building part footprints in the library so I am tempted to make a special footprint, since I had a pretty common routing conflict under the tiny x4 SMT resistor arrays. But again vias are pretty cheap compared to my time for now at least.

A custom footprint might be worth reconsidering before production release, if it's useful in more than one place. I use several x4 resistor arrays in this design. These days it costs more to place the part, than buy most parts, so arrays make sense.

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The only reason I was aware of the cadsoft sale, was because i was researching the freeware packages while considering an eagle upgrade. made it easier to connect a few dots...

JR

[juniorhifikit]

I actually paid for an upgrade to the "Standard Version" without realizing it still had a board layout size limitation.

Interested to see what they do with Eagle + parts house combination...

[JR.]

I actually paid for an upgrade to the "Standard Version" without realizing it still had a board layout size limitation.

Interested to see what they do with Eagle + parts house combination...

Eagle has different levels of capability.

2 layer 100x80mm free
4 layer 100x160 standard .. $250 per module/$750 full house
>4 layers and no size limit Professional. $500 per module/$1500 full house

That non-profit license of all three standard modules for $125 sounds like a good deal for non-profits (non moi).

While I currently have an older professional license, I could get away with the standard size and number of layers if/when I ever upgrade. One of the boards in my first generation tuner is too big for 100x160, but after paying for all that unused PCB real estate I won't make that mistake in my next design.
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Since PCB houses get to charge more for larger PCBs, they may be motivated to increase the size while keeping or adding some other limitation to the free version to nudge people to buy the upgrade. In some free CAD deals, you don't get access to your own gerbers so you can't use them elsewhere.

Cadsoft is set up the software so the freeware version can open up and read larger professional jobs, so people using the pro software can freely export their jobs to any PCB house or contract manufacturer, without that vendor having to buy eagle pro to read the work files. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

JR

[mediatechnology]

Do I recall a design package that is affiliated with Digi-Key? IIRC it had libraries for DIgi-Key parts and used Digi-Key PNs to generate the BOM.

Interesting to see what Mouser will do.

[juniorhifikit]

Whatever they do, I hope it also comes with a Mac version

I had a Windows XP partition running on my Mac - just for pcb express software - and the whole OS just took a dump.

[JR.]

Do I recall a design package that is affiliated with Digi-Key? IIRC it had libraries for DIgi-Key parts and used Digi-Key PNs to generate the BOM.

Interesting to see what Mouser will do.

http://cad.devl.org/index.html this looks interesting and pretty generic

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Accelerat ... 0189168025 also looks interesting

I find that since I'm not using the latest version of Eagle, when I download any newer libraries they don't work.. (clever sales technique to get people to upgrade).

What the world needs is universal portability for things like footprints, it seems the IC and component makers should be motivated to provide some universal readable format. And then the sundry cad sellers, conversion utilities. But I won't hold my breath. It seems gerber files would be a pretty universal intermediate format with capability to support all the different layers (pad, hole, solder mask, keepout, etc).

JR

[mediatechnology]

BTW I think that may have been the Orcad (several versions ago) that had Digi-Key integration.

[mediatechnology]

OK, maybe it was Express PCB. I never use that part of it 'cause you do the really hard stuff which is layout.

[JR.]

I appreciate the difficulty for component manufacturers to talk to the tower of babble that is sundry cad library formats, but it seems gerber is already a defacto standard for exchanging accurate 2d output files. Why not some gerber files attached to, or linked to component data sheet PDFs?

It shouldn't be heavy lifting for most cad systems to import gerber data for the several layers. or not...

JR

PS: I guess there are .dxf and other common 2D formats,, but gerber is already in use by pcb designers.