Fritzing software
![fritzing software fritzing software](https://finestsoft.com/img/fritzing_4.jpg)
My research has left me divided as to which is going to be best for my needs and attention span for learning lol.
![fritzing software fritzing software](https://fritzing.org/assets/fritzing-preview-schem-9240bfebfd0e2384152ecec2b700c4aeee4adfa066f14b76e76c9f2c50ab8a2a.png)
This is confusing me the most currently : KiCAD vs Eagle. But since I currently have over 1000 Eagle boards. If I was starting over now, I'd probably look at KiCAD as my first choice. (OTOH, I'm still using the "non-profit" v7 version I bought in 2016 fo r$100 (on sale!) It's approximately equivalent to the $100y current version, and I'm thinking it might be about time to shell out another $100.) ($100/y to $500/y, compared to versions that used to be up to about $1200?)
FRITZING SOFTWARE UPGRADE
There's still a free version, and the prices aren't really that high compared to their old versions, assuming that they come out with new versions of SW that you want to upgrade to, within reasonable times.
FRITZING SOFTWARE SOFTWARE
Any suggestions and notes on personal experiences with PCB fabrication and design software are highly appreciated as they are helping me narrow my choices down. Thanks heaps everyone for the responses, both current and future, as a hobbyist it's far to easy to go down an investigative route that results in wasted time learning / researching for various reasons ( like overly complex software that's incapable of easily producing what I need or in suitable formats ), I prefer to channel my time into the projects themselves rather than learning the multitude of CAD software options out there. If anyone here has used them before, please drop a message here to let me know how you went. From what i'm reading here and in other related forums, their pricing is on the mid to high end of things, but the service they offer may make it reasonable. Having to measure and try to replicate exactly the existing footprints is tedious and invites its own problems, this is also whats making fritzing less attractive due to the lack of updates.Īt this stage I think i'm going to have to learn Eagle PCB, it's disappointing it's now owned by autodesk and charged at a premium price, but such is the nature of the beast sometimes I guess.Īs far as PCB prototyping goes, Great PCB Prototype Services that You are Looking for | PCBCart is one iv'e found thats looking like the go for me due to myself being in Australia and them offering fast turn around to my location. I need the ability to drag and drop said main board footprints ( and the various standard footprints of numerous sensory / devices ) into the PCB design as all I use it for is making custom shields. The modular aspect of arduino in general is golden. I do incorperate component level circuit designs on some of my shields, but more often than not it's simply a neat way for me to take my projects off the breadboard. "arduino footprints" ( and compatible devices ) is the best term to describe what I used fritzing for originally and its what i'm primarily looking for in PCB design software. You have masterfully decoded my gibberish yet again westfw, I tip my hat to you good sir (and it's in that "difficult valley" where improving it in meaningful ways will likely make it much more difficult to use.) There are "Arduino footprints" for most of the "real" CAD packages these days.įritzing is sorta nice if you want illustration-quality semi-photo-realistic drawings of Arduinos an Protoboards, but I found it extremely frustrating when I tried to do anything more complex. The free shipping from China is slow and if you want to pay for the fast shipping it's going to make your boards significantly more expensive.
![fritzing software fritzing software](https://www.amebaiot.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1-5.png)
I'm sure others will chime in with their favorites. A couple years back when I was shopping around dirtypcbs looked like a good deal of all that offered custom solder mask colors but it's likely which company has the best price will change frequently so don't consider that information of much value. The quality may not be perfect but as long as you don't push right to the edge of their minimum sizes and aren't picky about the silkscreen being super crisp then they should work fine no matter which you choose. You'll find a lot of them clustered around a certain low price point. If you want to go with the Chinese then you have a lot of options. Their prices per square inch are higher than the Chinese companies but if you only need a few small boards it's really not going to be a big deal. OSHpark is popular because they provide high quality boards made in the US (so it's fast if you live in the US). By far, the top two hobbyist choices for EDA software now are KiCad and Eagle.Īs for small volume PCB manufacturing services, there are plenty of choices.