Hi Steve, Good luck on this little adventure. For the sake of my curiosity, consider KiCad, and report what you find. I've been forced to play a bit with Eagle (Arduino side-projects and the like), and it does seem to have its own very-unique work flow. However, as previously mentioned, there is a large existing user base for support. Like Shawn, I use Altium for day-to-day work. I like it, but would not recommend it for small projects with small budgets. Please let us know how it goes. Don't hesitate to ask us for help! Regards, Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chris Knudsen, Principal Engineer • *New England Research, Inc.* • 331 Olcott Dr Ste L1 • White River Junction, VT 05001 • USA [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> • www.ner.com <http:www.ner.com> • Phone: +1-802-296-2401 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 12/4/2015 1:16 PM, Larry Joy wrote: > Try KiCad (KEE-CAD). It's free and CERN is working on it to improve it. > > Larry Joy > -----Original Message----- From: Steve Gregory > Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 12:31 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [TN] Process guy looking to start trying to do board layout... > > 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] ______________________________________________________________________