Re: Low cost PCB layout (for Mac's)
From: Ralph Malph (noone_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 12/29/03
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Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:04:29 -0500
Thanks for the info, but other than this one tool, there are not many
engineering uses for Macs; at least there are not many that I can use.
The bulk of my work is doing DSP and FPGA design and FPGA tools just
don't exist on the Mac. I don't know of any DSP tools on the Mac
either.
Dennis Clark wrote:
>
> Ralph Malph <noone@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well,
>
> I'll throw in the lone voice of the Macintosh community. I use Osmond,
> which is currently a freeware package being created, but is VERY good. It
> can't autoroute (which no one seems to like anyway) but it does support
> partlist and netlist files, copper floods and "ratsnesting" which allows
> you to see what pins should be connected. Building your own libraries is
> very easy, as is doing minute individual mods after the board is done. It
> can handle any number of board layers and does the standard modern Gerber
> and drill file outputs. Joe (the author) also does a Gerber-to-PDF tool
> so you can look at the gerber file outputs to make yourself feel better about
> the final product. I've used the files on a bunch of PCB manufacturers and
> never had any complaints.
>
> He has both OS9 and OSX versions of the software. You can get it here:
> http://www.swcp.com/~jchavez/osmond.html
>
> If you are into Mac electronics, don't bother with the Douglas PC layout
> system, it looks like the last time they gave that package a facelift the
> 80286 was the hottest thing on the market...
>
> I use LogicWorks 4.0 to do my schematic capture, then massage the parts
> and connection list files to work with Osmond to give me a GREAT CAD package
> for PC boards. Designworks would be a better package, but Logicworks is
> about $80 and comes with a book on Amazon.com - Osmond is free.
>
> have fun,
> DLC
>
> : I am looking for low cost PCB layout software. My designs are not
> : overly complex, and are on small boards, but I will be using very small
> : parts and features ~0.4mm/0.016" pitch, .006"/.006" trace/space. I have
> : looked at a couple of web sites that list free software and have found
> : two types of packages; the no strings attached open source packages that
> : are not very mature or run on xNIX (and not windows) or the PCB fab
> : house supplied packages that tie you to getting your boards from them.
>
> : Clearly I need something that actually works, so most of the truely free
> : packages are not viable. The PCB package from
> : http://bach.ece.jhu.edu/~haceaton/pcb/ seems to work, but is not
> : supported under windows. It is not clear if it will run under Cygwin.
> : I guess I could dedicate a machine to PCB design and run Linix, but I am
> : pretty sure I would end up creating problems from my lack of experience
> : with *NIX.
>
> : I looked at a few of the PCB vendor packages and have done one design
> : and ordered boards. It was fairly low risk since it only cost $59
> : including shipping from expressPCB. But these boards have no soldermask
> : or silk screen. I can live without silk screen, but the solder mask is
> : important when using fine pitch parts. In general, I am not happy being
> : tied to a vendor and having to duplicate the layout work to use a
> : different vendor. Reentering a schematic is no big deal, but layout is
> : very time intensive and each tool is toally different.
>
> : So that brings us to the commercial layout packages. Most of them are
> : several kilobucks and out of my budget. I found a list at
> : http://www.olimex.com/pcb/dtools.html of a lot of packages, but there is
> : no real info on them. So that is why I am here. Can I ask for opinions
> : on what tools will give the best benifit for the cost of the low end
> : tools? I hate to spend even $100 on a tool that I am not sure I will
> : want to continue to use, but if I have confidence that it will be a good
> : tool, I would not mind paying $500.
>
> : So what are my options and how good are they for fine pitch work, up to
> : 6 layers?
>
> : And does anyone have any experience with TCI3? It seems to be a free
> : tool, but when I follow the link, the page is in French. Anyone know if
> : the tool can be used by English speakers (and readers)? Any English
> : docs? I guess I could learn metric dimensions; 0.15 trace - 0.15 space
> : :).
>
> --
> ============================================================================
> * Dennis Clark dlc@frii.com www.techtoystoday.com *
> * "Programming and Customizing the OOPic Microcontroller" Mcgraw-Hill 2003 *
> ============================================================================
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