I heartily agree with you. I have just come out of a fifteen year absence
from pcb making and was impressed by what is available. What I liked about the free Eagle download was that you are not limited by connections, just board size. One of the free/cheap ones that I surveyed went beyond its limit as soon as I loaded the 68HC11 from the library. Using this one (I can't remember which one, but IVEX comes to mind) you would have to edit your library parts for each design to remove those pins that you didn't need. The 68HC11 library for Eagle was complete as far as I wanted it - except for the annoying lack of a 34064 to get it started! However that was easy - I just took a three pin to92 and modified it. People have said that the software lacks a good library management editor - I didn't find that but maybe that's because I come from a command-line background. Those brought up on a WIMP interface may find it difficult. I have just stuffed the boards I made at APC - $200 CDN for 6 prototypes and I'll never go back to etching my own! Please re-consider your decision - especially if you have a mother/wife that doesn't like acid being spilled! I could have cut down my cost substantially ($50) by reducing the number of drills used - APC charges for those beyond the minimum. This may be because of the international nature of cadsoft.de and contributors to its library. That would be the only criticism I would have of Eagle. regards Nigel Johnson VE3ID/G4AJQ At 10:02 03-03-15 -0500, you wrote: >I am not familiar with the low-cost version of Eagle that you refer to, but >I use regular Eagle for my embedded design work and have a lot of respect >for it. > >Just as in trying to design with double sided boards, you will find that as >the component density goes up, the topological complexity of the design goes >up and you rapidly reach a point that your traces become "trapped" (i.e., >"you can't get there from here"). |