PCB Designer for Dummies
Prophead100
Posts: 192
A crazy thought....
There is some great PCB design software out there but when I was simply looking at layout a bunch of parts (20-25 resistors, capacitors, Rj45 jacks, etc.) on a USB protoboard there was very little short of a graphic program and a spreadsheet to sketch out where I would put things in a hurry and add up the parts to order. That doesn't work real well when you want to start shuffling things around. (Not actual electrical connections but just placement).
The thought occurred to me watching my son that that if (ok start to giggle now) you had something like the Lego Design software then the fast prototype or hobby project on a proto board could be quick dsigned, a parts list generated and even parts purchased directly. It wouldn't replace the classic breadboard but could fill a great gap between the breadboard and cad program to make the protoboard very competitive and easy to populate. Take a look at the Lego digital site sometime. http://ldd.lego.com/getstarted/default.aspx
There is some great PCB design software out there but when I was simply looking at layout a bunch of parts (20-25 resistors, capacitors, Rj45 jacks, etc.) on a USB protoboard there was very little short of a graphic program and a spreadsheet to sketch out where I would put things in a hurry and add up the parts to order. That doesn't work real well when you want to start shuffling things around. (Not actual electrical connections but just placement).
The thought occurred to me watching my son that that if (ok start to giggle now) you had something like the Lego Design software then the fast prototype or hobby project on a proto board could be quick dsigned, a parts list generated and even parts purchased directly. It wouldn't replace the classic breadboard but could fill a great gap between the breadboard and cad program to make the protoboard very competitive and easy to populate. Take a look at the Lego digital site sometime. http://ldd.lego.com/getstarted/default.aspx