PC boards and software

Brad> der Mouse wrote: Brad> (you may well find that in the end, there were/are actually Brad> good reasons for why things "have always been done that way" Brad> :-) Brad> You didn't ask, but if I was you, I'd do this: Brad> - grab a copy of the free eagle Brad> - fit your first design into the tiny dimensions the free Brad> version allows (and 2 layers). Brad> - capture the schematic and then do the layout by hand. you'll Brad> find you spend about 90% of your time creating library entries Brad> for parts and/or searching the existing libraries for parts Brad> which match. This means you'll end up with a .pdf file for Brad> *every* part and you'll know the footprint of each part very Brad> well. (this part is worth a lot of time - except for shorting Brad> power and ground, parts that don't fit on their pads/holes is Brad> the most common screwup imho). Eagle has an extensive collection of libraries on the kit, and more available for the download. Apart from some connectors and large integrated circuits, you should find what you need already done. I did a design that uses some DIP ICs, some large pin count ASICs, assorted passive parts, and some connectors. The only parts I needed to create from scratch were the ASICs, a DB-25 connector, an RJ45 connector, a BNC connector, and two MiniCircuits transformers. All the rest was either already there, or most of it was and only signal names needed adjusting. Connectors and such can be created easily from mechanical drawings that the manufacturers have on their websites. For the ASICs, I wrote a small C program that generates an Eagle script to define the pads, which is otherwise a time consuming task. (If anyone wants it, just ask.) paul