Now that I think about it more, the Autodesk subscription thing might be a great thing. I have a feeling that KiCAD is getting more users and probably becoming better.
I think I'll get a 2 year Eagle license and then check in on KiCAD in a couple years...
That pathway works too..
KiCad has a quite good Eagle import, and is quite good already.
That means you can take any of your Eagle designs, and try both packages on a design you know.
A big plus for KiCad is that it runs on many platforms - not just Windows. (Sorry if someone already noted that.)
Eagle, at least the version I had (4.16 or so), worked on win, Linux and MacOSX. With different problems on any of them. On Win10 worked much better than on win7. I switched to KiCad, fully.
I can't imagine that the most "cunning" autorouter could possibly grok the feng shui of PCB layout. I've never used an autorouter, and I never will. There's more to layout than just making connections. It's all about current paths and where to branch the power traces and and put "fences" in the ground plane to route those currents where you want them to go, e.g. past sensitive circuits instead of through them.
PCB layout is an art, and a good layout is more than just functional: it's a thing of beauty.
-Phil
How can you have an opinion about something that you never used? Tech should not be and is not art but science, art is about taste. If you like to stay slow then by all means route manually. An autorouter is just a tool that can be used wrong or right. If you place your components optimal then a proper autorouter will route exactly how you would + you can always adjust and tweak. Seeing an autorouter at work to ones satisfaction is mesmerizing and to me a thing of beauty.
Btw planes are not silver bullets, they should not be used for solving problems that don't exist. At worst they introduce problems.
Comments
I take that as more incentive to look at KiCad.
That pathway works too..
KiCad has a quite good Eagle import, and is quite good already.
That means you can take any of your Eagle designs, and try both packages on a design you know.
2. Eagle
Paul
Eagle, at least the version I had (4.16 or so), worked on win, Linux and MacOSX. With different problems on any of them. On Win10 worked much better than on win7. I switched to KiCad, fully.
How can you have an opinion about something that you never used? Tech should not be and is not art but science, art is about taste. If you like to stay slow then by all means route manually. An autorouter is just a tool that can be used wrong or right. If you place your components optimal then a proper autorouter will route exactly how you would + you can always adjust and tweak. Seeing an autorouter at work to ones satisfaction is mesmerizing and to me a thing of beauty.
Btw planes are not silver bullets, they should not be used for solving problems that don't exist. At worst they introduce problems.