Hey Steve,
I'm a CAD monkey/lurker here, but maybe I can offer something rather
than absorbing for a change. I'm making some assumptions that you're
not looking for a one-off solution, though.
The Mentor/Digikey thing is something I would say to try if you can demo
- if you think this is something you'll be doing more than a couple of
times a year and/or has any level of sophistication. Mentor PADS has a
relatively short learning curve compared to a lot of software, and my
understanding is that you get a really robust library - providing you're
using stuff that can be sourced from Digikey. It's $1300 for a
schematic + layout solution though, and really you'll want both.
I haven't played with Eagle, since I get access to PADS on the company
dime for personal stuff (and I've used PADS or Altium for ~20 years),
but it's certainly popular, particularly on the medium-to-high-end
hobbyist type. It will definitely do what you want. And, for this
particular case you can use their free version.
The open-source stuff I've looked at in attempts to move away from a
Windows environment have seemed to be geared towards the sort of person
that wants 100% control, even if it's wrong, and most of the "free"
stuff is geared towards - well, okay funded by - specific PCB manufacturers.
So far as the actual board design, once you figure out how to push the
polygons around, you're in a better place than most PCB designers that
rarely even get to see the results of their own work, so I wouldn't
sweat that too much. I'm more than happy to answer any questions I can,
though.
Olav
On 12/04/2015 09:31 AM, Steve Gregory wrote:
> 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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