So I never saw a need for autorouting, and I enjoy the process of "just drawing it". Tube Circuits don't have nearly as many nodes and connections as a computers motherboard. I believe that you could use a Gerber editor to splice together small Gerber files, but it might not be worth the work or risk of screw ups. Not that I have ever done this, but it is possible to make several small boards in a size restricted design package and stitch them together in a drawing program if you DIY your own boards. For those, the only rule is "does it work?" Note that I did not design boards for Motorola products. Learning how to trick Mentor into doing what I wanted, not what the Motorola corporate design rules forced, took several years.
After a year or so I could make Eagle do things he couldn't imagine. As with all of these layout packages, learning the basics takes time, practice, and the creation of a big "cheat sheet."Įagle had its quirks, but I worked at an off campus think tank in the early 90's which was about a mile from the Cadsoft US office, so their tech guy knew me well. I used Cadence and Mentor Graphics PCB layout software at work. I have downloaded and installed KiCad, but have not taken the time to really learn it. It is not clear if using the free version to open a schematic I downloaded from the web could jeopardize the Eagle V5.11 that I have paid for, so I have removed it from my PC. It would not open if the Ethernet cable was pulled from the PC. The free version I downloaded about 2 years ago did "call home" to Autodesk for authorization on start up. The new versions can read the old libraries, but my old V5.11 can not read any library from V6 or later.Īutodesk does have a free download which is limited to two schematic sheets, single side or two sided boards (no 4 layer boards) and 80cm2 (12.4 sq inches) maximum board size. To make things even harder the library formats have changed at least twice since V5.11. Tubelab doesn't make enough profit in most years to afford that, and Autodesk's restrictive agreement is a deal breaker, so I'm still using V 5.11. Agreeing to this lease required forfeiting your previous license, so they would kill my V5.11 making it impossible to go back. Then Autodesk bought it and asked $600 per year for a subscription that would allow 50 square inch boards and commercial use. I paid for nearly every upgrade until Windows version 5.11 when Newark / Farnell bought them and raised the price. I started with Eagle 2.6 for DOS in 1992.
I think autodesk made eagle freeware again./QUOTE]
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