[Coco] Motorola Parts Missing in ExpressPCB

[jdaggett at gate.net]

On 15 Aug 2012 at 11:54, Michael Graham wrote:

> I haven't made any serious production PCBs yet, but I've spent a lot of
> time learning open-source tools like KiCad so I can avoid any licensing
> issues from the design software side of things.

Michael:

Open Source tools have their advantages and disadvantages. The great advantage is that 
they are generally no or low cost. The main disadvantage over commercial tools is support. 
Bug fixes on open source software can come a bit slower at times than that of open source 
tools. 

The key to any cad tools used in PCB fabrication is good reliablilty, ease of use, large user 
based that often comes with library parts, and relatively stable product. I have used with a lot 
of layout tools from very high end to very low end. 

I started using Cadence Allegro at version 2.1 through Version 13.0. That is a very high end 
product and carries very good support. Worked with a several of the software engineers at 
Cadence to help them understand the needs that were needed for SMT layout and the ability 
to do boards very quickly. i have found that Eagle, eve with the freeware limitations, is not all 
that bad. Cadsoft maybe picky as to use, they do regular updates to the software to correct 
issues and the library and user scripts do aid ememsely in library development and layout. 

I tried KiCad and what I really did not like the most is library development. Then again that 
was a rather older version from several years back. I have not tried it lately so I can't really 
say to much bad about it other than a rather long learning curve for usage back then. I was 
more interested in something that I could adapt to rather quickly with a large libray based and 
I found that in Eagle. 

maybe some day I might just try KiCad again. I do have a better computer now than when I 
did try it about 3 years ago. 


james