Can't give you any recommendations,  however, I did witness some students
doing quick layout: photocopy a semi complicated board, delete parts not
in need, reconnect wire and modified to compliance of rules, such as 45
degree corner fan out, etc. After few weeks, they were looking somewhat
pro-ish.  No kidding,  I am sure it is far from impedance balancing act,
but good enough for some robotic control, visual image processing.  Scary.
> Hi All,
>
> Many of you know me, and know that most of my career has been a hands-on,
> out on the production floor kind of process guy , but now I'm looking at
> trying to do board layout.
>
> Yeah, yeah I know, forget about it. But I'm not looking to do anything
> complicated, it's a small 1" X 2.85", 2-layer board with 3-LED's, a
> through-hole right angle push button switch, 5-holes that a little wire
> harness can be soldered into, and two mounting holes.
>
> I've often thought about learning more about board design and layout, but
> my plate always fills up with the day-to-day production and process issues
> so I wind up pushing that off to the back burner and don't think about it
> again for a while. So now the idea has popped up again. The story is that
> we build this little board for a customer and now they want to change the
> size and layout and use a different switch. So my boss asks me if this is
> something I can do, we don't have any design guys here. I have Pentalogix
> ViewMate Deluxe and do gerber edits to apertures in the solder paste
> layers
> for the stencils I buy, but don't really change the layout of boards,
> ViewMate is not meant for that. I explain that to him and he asks if he
> bought the software would this be something that I would be interested in
> doing, so now the opportunity has presented itself again.
>
> So I've been looking around and I'm not looking the buy a seat at a
> full-blown CAD station, just something inexpensive and simple to use. So
> I've been looking at Eagle, and my question is, have any of you used this?
> Is this software a good starting point for a rookie like me? I know there
> is an IPC Designers Council forum, but those guys are so far ahead of me
> that I don't want to waste their time. Any feedback is welcome.
>
> Steve
>
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>
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