KiCad includes a 3D viewer, which you can use to inspect your design on an interactive canvas. You can rotate and pan around to inspect details that are difficult to inspect on a 2D view.
EAGLE is a scriptable electronic design automation application with schematic capture, printed circuit board layout, auto-router, and computer-aided manufacturing features. Autodesk Inc. EAGLE contains a schematic editor for designing circuit diagrams. Parts can be placed on many sheets and connected through ports. The PCB layout editor allows back annotation to the schematic and auto-routing to connect traces based on the connections defined in the schematic.
Many PCB fabrication companies accept these standard files. The layout editor brings your design to life. The board represents the physical reality of your design. The online export options allow you to export to various formats to share and manufacture your work.
Pros: Eagle CAD is easy for hobbyists just starting with printed circuit CAD designs and includes free options for limited tool versions. Cons: This software is not mainstream with corporate businesses that have internal PCB designers. Also, using this tool for higher technology boards requires more manual calculations and routing than the higher-end CAD tools.
This is open-source software. This free PCB design software can also check the circuit design flaws. Aside from the possibility to print your projects, you can use TinyCAD to publish your drawings by copying and pasting them into a Word document or saving them as a PNG bitmap image for the Internet. You can also use it as an interface for other PCB layout tools. PCB layout and schematic editing tools, library content, and community-driven features.
Printed circuit boards PCBs are the backbone of every electronic gizmo out there. They're not flashy like those microprocessors, or abundant like resistors, but they're essential to making all components in a circuit connect together just right.
It's a love that we want to spread. It's a skill that benefits electronics enthusiasts of every caliber. This first tutorial goes over how to install the software, and tailor-fit its interface and support files. More powerful PCB design tools out there might have a better autorouter, or nifty tools like simulators, programmers, and 3D viewers.
It's an excellent place to start if you've never designed a PCB before. Here are a few tutorial and concepts you may want to familiarize yourself with before dropping down into this rabbit hole:. Grab the most recent version that matches your operating system the software is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
It's a relatively light download -- about 45MB. EAGLE installs just like any old program, it'll self extract and then present you with a series of dialogs to configure the installation. There are a few limitations to be aware of when using the free version:. If you need to upgrade your license there are a few versions available. Most licenses are still incredibly low priced in comparing to the other stuff out there.
The Control Panel is the 'homebase' for Eagle, it links together all of the other modules in the software. You can explore the six separate trees in the control panel, which highlight separate functions of the software:. If you select a file in a tree, information about it will appear in the right-hand portion of the window.
This is a great way to explore libraries, project designs EAGLE comes with some fun examples , or to get a good overview of what a script's purpose is. There are hundreds of libraries in here, some devoted to specific parts like resistors, or NPN transistors, others are devoted to specific manufacturers. This is an amazing resource! But it can also be a bit overwhelming.
Even if you just want to add a simple through-hole electrolytic capacitor, there are dozens of libraries and parts to sort through to find the right thing. Instead of using the hundreds of default libraries, you can use the SparkFun EAGLE Libraries, which are filtered down to only include the parts that we've used in designs ourselves. And they're constantly updated with new parts we've discovered. Here's how you can install and use the SparkFun libraries instead of or in addition to the default ones:.
The most recent version of the libraries can always be found in the GitHub repository. Basically, all you'll need to do from the main repository page is click 'Download ZIP'. Go to the 'Options' menu and then select 'Directories'.
This is a list of computer directories where EAGLE looks when it populates all six objects in the tree view There are a few options here. Note : Mac and Linux users should place a colon : between directories instead of the semicolon.
Now, when you go back and look at the 'Libraries' tree, there should be two folders included, one of which should be our SparkFun Eagle Libraries. To do this, right click on the 'lbr' folder, and select 'Use none'. Then check the libraries in each of the two folders. Next to them should be either a grey or green dot. A green dot next to a library means it's in use, a grey dot means it's not.
Your libraries tree should look a little something like this:. If you've created library parts that you would like to share with SparkFun to include in our Eagle library, visit this tutorial to see how. Open one up by expanding the 'Projects' tree. From there, under the 'examples' folder open up the 'arduino' project by double-clicking the red folder or right-clicking and selecting 'Open project'.
Note that, in this view, project folders are red and regular folders are the standard yellow. They should be used together to create the finished product that is a functional PCB design.
The schematic editor on the left above is a collection of red circuit symbols which are interconnected with green nets or wires. A project's schematic is like the comments in a program's code. It helps tell the story of what the board design actually does, but it doesn't have much influence on the end product. Parts in a schematic aren't precisely measured, they're laid out and connected in a way that's easy to read, to help you and others understand what's going on with the board design.
The board editor is where the real magic happens. Here colorful layers overlap and intersect to create a precisely measured PCB design. Two copper layers -- red on top, blue on the bottom -- are strategically routed to make sure different signals don't intersect and short out.
Yellow circles on this design, but they're more often green called 'vias' pass a signal from one side to the other. Bigger vias allow for through-hole parts to be inserted and soldered to the board.
Other, currently hidden, layers expose copper so components can be soldered to it. Both of these windows work hand-in-hand.
Any changes made to the schematic are automatically reflected in the board editor. Whenever you're modifying a design it's important to keep both windows open at all times. If, for instance, you closed the board window of a design, but continued to modify a schematic. The changes you made to the schematic wouldn't be reflected in the board design.
This is bad. The schematic and board design should always be consistent. It's really painful to backtrack any changes in an effort to reattain consistency. Always keep both windows open! There are a few ways to tell if you don't have consistency between windows. First, there's a 'dot' in the lower-right hand corner of both windows. If the dot is green, everything is groovy. If the dot is magenta, a window's probably closed that shouldn't be. Second, and more obvious, if you close either of the two windows a big, huge warning should pop up in the other:.
If you see that warning STOP doing anything, and get the other window back open. This is a subject that's usually glazed over, but it's important to know how to navigate around both of these windows. To move around within an editor window, a mouse with a scroll wheel comes in very handy. You can zoom in and out by rotating the wheel forward and backward.
Pressing the wheel down, and moving the mouse allows you to drag the screen around. If you're stuck without a three-button mouse, you'll have to resort to the view options to move around the editor views. All of these tools are located near the middle of the top toolbar, or under the 'View' menu. The zoom in -- -- and zoom out -- -- tools are obviously handy. So is the 'Zoom select' tool -- -- which alters the view to your selection. EAGLE's user interface is highly customizable.
Anything from the background color, to layer colors, to key bindings can be modified to fit your preference. Better tailoring your interface can make designing a PCB much easier.
On this page we'll talk about how we at SparkFun prefer to customize our UI. None of these steps are required. Customize your UI as you see fit. These are just the settings that we've grown accustomed to. The first adjustment we always make to the UI is the background color of the board editor.
The standard white background doesn't always meld very well with the array of colored layers required for board design. Instead, we usually opt for a black background. There are other options in this box to be explored, but you may want to hold off on adjusting most until you have more experience with the software. Another UI improvement we like to make in the board editor is turning the grid on. Dimensions and sizes are so important to the design of your PCB, having some visible reminders of size can be very helpful.
To turn the grid view on, click the icon near the top-left corner of the board window or go to the 'View' menu and select 'Grid'. Switch the 'Display' radio button over to 'On'. We'll also make the grid a bit less fine by setting the 'Size' to mil 0. Scripts are a much more streamlined way to quickly configure your interface. With one click of the button, you can automatically set up all of your colors and key binds.
Script files can also be shared, and run by anyone. First, click here to download the script in a zip folder. Unzip the 'spk. Then you'll need to run the script. In the board window click on the Script icon -- or go to 'File' then 'Execute Script'.
In the file browser, select the 'spk. This UI setup is presents a nice logical view of the layers. The important copper layers are very visible, but distinct red on top, blue on bottom, green for vias , and the silkscreen is white as it is on most PCB designs.
That pair of tutorials will explain how to go from a schematic design, to laying out and routing a PCB, to generating gerber files and sending them to a fab house.
This is a comparison of several PCB design software. PCB design software for everyone. Included with a Fusion for personal use subscription, EAGLE free download is a limited version for hobbyists including two schematic sheets, two signal layers and an 80 cm2 Choose your operating system: Windows. As mentioned earlier, the software can occupy a space of up to MB, which is entirely negligible compared to the functions and advantages it brings along with it.
They have a free version available. The free version is time unlimited. The software is being actively developed and supported.
A library of over generic symbols, as well as custom symbol creation. Access to over 4 million components via Digi-Key Catalog integration. Freedom to keep designs private, make public, share via link, or embed web pages, blogs, or emails.
Integrated Bill of Materials and quoting. A direct link to Digi-Key Technical Support for help with component selection activities. With Ultra Librarian, You Can 1. Search Quickly find the parts you need in our ever-expanding database of verified parts from the leading component manufacturers. Design With your part, the library needs to get back to focusing on what matters, designing revolutionary electronics.
Simulate and program Arduino and breadboard components Use standard modules to build complex circuits Create and explore circuits, then export to PCB design software Notes : Web-based app. The free version makes your designs public.
Notes : Usable only with licensed manufacturers Output Gerbers : Yes NI Multisim 14 represents a best-in-class engineering design experience, both in the classroom and laboratory, performing SPICE simulation or measurements on prototypes.
E asily A pplicable G raphical L ayout E ditor. Therefore there is no need for converting netlists between schematics and layouts. User Language The new User Language functions neterror , netget and netpost can be used to access remote sites on the Internet. The User Language function t2string now has an optional format parameter. The new User Language dialog function dlgSelectionChanged can be used to determine whether the current selection in a dlgListView or dlgListBox has changed.
Note that currently the DesignLink server has problems delivering more than 50 search results at a time, and can only deliver the first search results, even if it reports more than hits for any given search. The User Language dialog objects dlgTextView and dlgLabel now open external hyperlinks with the appropriate application program. The width of a dlgComboBox is now automatically adjusted when the data in its string array is changed. Hyperlinks contained in the descriptions of files or library objects are now opened with the appropriate application program.
Program Features Professional Edition General online Forward- and Back-Annotation context sensitive help function no hardware copy protection!