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 > ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________