Printed Circuit software

Bullwinkle

I am getting to the point in my current Stamp project where I am working out how to go from the development board to the final product. I want to do a neat job. I have seen kits at electronics supply shops that let you print a circuit on special paper, using your laser printer, then transfer this to a copper coated plastic sheet and finally etch the finished PC board.

This would seem to be the ideal way to do a real professional job.

Could anyone recommend any public domain or freeware software for drawing and printing printed circuits? The software MUST run on Linux. I have no access to a Windows PC whatsoever.

BTW - This project is a fully automatic irrigation controller utilizing feedback control via a DIY moisture meter. The code takes into account local water restriction rules and only irrigate when it is "legal" to do so, and only when it needs to based on soil moisture. For our yard it supports 3 lawn zones, 2 garden bed zones and one vegetable garden, using 6 solenoids in total. My low-tech moisture probe consists of 2 metal rods, buried at the base of the roots in the lawn. To measure soil mositure I charge a 10uF capacitor and use the RCTIME command to time how long it takes to discharge between the metal rods. The time is directly proportial to the soil resistance, which is inversely proportional to the soil moisture. The finished unit will require a BS2, RTC, LCD, probably a serial to parallel IC (I need more than 16 I/O ports!), at least 3 momentary contact switches and 6 opto-isolators. The project will be powered via a 24 vac transformer (needed for the solenoids) and a simple bridge rectifier and voltage divider to get the 5v or so for the BS2 and other components.

I will post the code, and schematic to the projects area when I'm done. I aim to finish before our next summer watering season in September.

Chris Savage

Bullwinkle,

·· Even if for a BASIC Stamp Project this thread is more appropriate for the Sandbox and is being moved there.· There have been several threads there about PCB Software recently.

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=572906

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=572694

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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com

cyberbiota

Bullwinkle-

I use Eagle Light (Freeware) from CadSoft. They make a version that will run under Linux:

http://www.cadsoft.de/cgi-bin/download.pl?page=/home/cadsoft/html_public/download.htm.de&dir=eagle/program/4.1

There is a nice English language tutorial for Eagle here:

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~fredm/courses/91.548-spr03/pcb/

The company is German, and most of their website is in German, but they have English language versions of the their software and the instruction manuals. I print out the files with a laser printer onto glossy photo-quality laser printer paper, and iron the traces onto copper-clad FR4 material. Just etch (I use ferric chloride), clean (100% isopropanol removes the toner really well) drill and solder. The first one I ever tried worked beautifully. There are lots of homebrew PCB sites on the 'net. Remember- Google is your friend!

peter

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Peter C. Charles

Director, Research and Technology
CyberBiota, Incorporated
Peter.charles@cyberbiota.com
http://www.cyberbiota.com

LoopyByteloose

Eagle Light is delightful.
You can get others after you learn it, but you will always have a system that is independent of a vendor. So you can print up one or two boards.

In the beginning, you might find [noparse][[/noparse]like me] that your designs are too crowded and unrealistic. My making the mistakes at home rather than jobing them out, you don't waste a lot of bucks. Eventually as your skill improves, you can use a job and forget about drilling holes or tedious chemical chores.

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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)

······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

John Bond

Hey Bullwinkle, sounds like an interesting project.

I have to agree with Herzog on PCB software, Eagle is good once you've got over the learning curve. It is very German in it's style. Germans are known for their precission and this applies to Eagle (This is good in PCB software).·"Ze software performs just so!! Ya". Most of the commands and some of the icons work a little differently to the American Standard and this takes a little getting used to (But it is worth the effort).

Once you are moderately competent with the software, you can create a circuit (Schematic), design the board, etch, drill and solder the components in a couple of hours. PCB manufacturers (even here in darkest Africa) will accept the file if you need a professional job or many boards.

I have tried a couple of the free downloads and have even used CorelDraw but I find Eagle the most rewarding.

Kind Regards from Kwa Dukuza

John Bond

Dave Paton

I'll 3rd (or 4th?) EAGLE. Yes, it's very teutonic in it's behavior (Ja, ze softvare vill only behave in zis vey, but it iz because zat is de only correct vey!), but the discipline that it will train you in is good. THe autorouter in the professional version is getting better, but I still hand route everything (even in my $56k/seat package I use at work). I love it dearly nonetheless.

Entschuldigungen f

LoopyByteloose

The biggest challenge for a begneer is to select components. You just have to sit down and spend some time acquainting yourself with where everything you need is [noparse][[/noparse]there are thousands in the data].

Just go to ADD and in the search filed use a star (*) to get a complete wildcard search.

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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)

······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

StarMan

In addition, for Eagle, there are a couple of good newsgroups I browse and occasionally ask questions.· I don't really know how newsgroups work but I access them from my Outlook Express email program.· The groups I browse are called: eagle.support.eng·and eagle.userchat.eng.· They are subheadings under news.cadsoft.de.

Chris I.

Bullwinkle

Thanks for all this great advice guys!

Hopefully I will get some time this weekend to finish breadboarding out the whole circuit, and then I can start to finalise the code. I'm already pushing the RAM limit, but with some variable reuse and code redesign I should be able to get her going.

BTW - Does the Eagle CAD software know about the BS2 module? Or do you have to somehow describe it to it? Because I will definately want to socket the BS2 module onto the PC board so I can remove it for code modifications or debugging.

John Bond

The Stamp is not included in the basic Eagle download. CADSoft have a download site with TONS of components including at least three BS2·files. One of these has some of the basic components·you'll use in your project.
Günther suggested I try designing my own component once I had got the basics and that helped me get familiar with how Eagle works. I have a component directory which contains my favorite parts (and everything in my junk box). That makes it real quick to throw up a circuit. – Thanks Günther
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Kind Regards from Kwa Dukuza
·
John Bond

Paul Baker

Plus all the basic stamp needs is a DIP socket, so there will be a component in the library that will be compatible with the stamp, just make sure it is the right width (I think its 0.6" width, don't have my on hand at the moment to verify)

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