I’ve been using Fritzing to design all of our boards to date and it has worked fairly well. However, I’m wondering if switching to another tool might be helpful as I get into more complicated designs and need more components than offered by Fritzing. Most recently I came across upverter and it seems to be an interesting tool. Since we’re a small, low-budget shop, the “free” version is appealing. Does anyone have a recommendation for another design tool that’s low cost and has worked well for them?
I’ve started playing with Upverter and been really impressed / happy with it so far, and so long as you’re willing to share your designs, it’s totally free - which is great!
Here are two more which are free to use:
- http://www.123dapp.com/ – offers a suit of tools. For circuits there is http://123d.circuits.io/ which is an online design tool.
- http://www.rs-online.com/designspark/electronics/eng/page/designspark-pcb-home-page – This is a comprehensive offline editor which has access to component libraries found online. A little tricky at first to make sense of it with quite a steep learning curve. I had to work through some tutorials. What is helpful is a large community of developers to help along the way and they share designs too.
I agree with Gerriko, this is bets free tools for PCB Design.
I like designspark PCB because it is free and unrestricted. I found it much better than Eagle
The feedback is great. Unfortunately (?), I’m a Mac user and Designspark PCB is not available on the Mac and they have no plans to port it.
I like Eagle, there is a free version, but it got some limitations in. However, those limitations are most likely plenty for what most hobbyists need.
As a newbie to PCB design I tried several different EDA tools including Eagle, KiCad and Altium curcuitmaker. At my level they were all very similar in concept and execution and all had the same weakness; a parts library like a dog’s breakfast.
Upverter is the exception, I’ve become a real fan of their product (at the starter level).