What circuit drawing software?

[tony ennis]

What's the board say about circuit drawing software? Not a simulator, but what you use for laying out the traces and pads etc.

My pal uses OmniGlyph and gets good results but he cusses the whole time

[Mariss Freimanis]

I use ACAD.

Mariss

[mcphill]

EAGLE! No better option. Pair it with PCBGcode.org (free) and you can mill your own boards as well.

http://www.cadsoftusa.com/

[harryn]

I think it is also worth considering KiCad.

A friend is helping me with a project (he knows eagle, so that is what we are using, but, it is really such a hold over from the DOS days. It lacks intuitive feel at any level, at least for a new user.

KiCad also has an interesting feature that is missing from most other board designs - it lets you look at it in 3 D mechanically as well. If your project has tight fits, this 3D mechanical aspect is handy.

[dielectric]

I use Eagle for work, have played a little with KiCAD as well. Eagle is cool because the files are text format, so there are tons of scripts and user-language programs to manipulate designs and create objects. I learned CAD on CADKey for DOS, so I'm used to sparse interfaces and lots of hotkeys.

If I didn't know Eagle so well already, I'd be tempted to jump to KiCAD. It feels a little more modern to me.

Money no object, I'd go Altium all the way because the interface is amazing. I've watched some guys blazing through a layout and it offers some really nice features like auto trace-highlighting, trace labels, etc. It has some very nice versioning support and big-boy features of that ilk. It's a professional's tool and it shows.

[amplexus]

Eagle is good so is Proteus 7,which I like. Altium designer is very highly regaurded but not cheap. Check out the trial version.
Amplexus Ender

[Drools]

For the guys using Eagle, what are the best "Design Rules" for PCB routing?
Would you mind sharing your Eagle .dru file?

[dielectric]

Originally Posted by Drools For the guys using Eagle, what are the best "Design Rules" for PCB routing? Would you mind sharing your Eagle .dru file?

Tough to say, really. You'd need to match your rules to your intended PCB vendor. They'll give you some basics like minumum trace/space, allowed drills, etc. I usually design to 8 mils trace/space, going smaller than that tends to put you in a higher end process. The only other change I may make is to set up tented vias for boards that I don't plan to probe everywhere, which is done in the DRU. Typical Eagle idiosyncrasy...

Not at my work machine right now, so I can't attach it at the moment.

[Drools]

What about wire width? what works best when isolation routing? I intend on using pcb-gcode to export to Mach3 and do the routing, there must be some Eagle 'Best" settings.
Some of my answers mybe at http://www.pcbgcode.org/

[pminmo]

I use Eagle and have come to love it. Lots of postprocessing capability. It's a little steep on the learning curve because there is so much multiuse of tools. For example, lines can be wires, nets, documentation lines, mill lines depending on the layer selected to use the tool.

DRU is specific to what your output will be and for what. Milling a pcb for example would be based on the cutter used. Professional pcb would be on what the house is capable and what you desire the outcome to be. I don't like to use less than 12 mil traces for a professional house as much as possible and try to accomplish the design with a 12 mil dru. It's been my experience that drill sizes are more a dru change issue than trace info.

Bottom line, the dru files are easy to change and invoke for a design.