Anyone tried FreeRouting online autorouter?

On 10/12/2010 3:03 PM, Bill Toner wrote:

As I've been told to avoid Eagle's own autorouter, and Electra etc.

being too expensive, I kept searching and found something that claims to

be a free cost autorouter, but you have to run it over a website, no

downloads. Anyone else tried it and have comments?

http://www.freerouting.net/

I would suggest that you reconsider the advice to "...avoid Eagle's own

autorouter".   My own experience and the experiences related by others

on the forums suggests that Eagle's autorouter when used with a

reasonable set of design rules can be a very useful tool.   You do have

to learn a lot about its behavior and how that changes in response to

various DR parameter changes.   You will probably always want/need to

route some critical nets by hand ...but I suspect this is the case no

matter what router you use.

Jim

Hi Bill,

I've heard good words for the site, and a few EAGLE users do use it. Generally people who tell you to avoid EAGLE's autorouter simply expect to much of it. Autorouters in general are a tool, they will not replace a manual layout.

I personally use it, to finish up traces if I have any miniscule airwires I can't seem to find. A really cool trick is to adjust that settings so that it drops vias to your inner supply layers directly, huge time saver.

Remember the autorouter is a tool, and EAGLE's autorouter can be very helpful if 1) you know how to use it, and 2) You're reasonable with what you expect of it.

hth,

Best Regards,

On 10/12/10 3:03 PM, Bill Toner wrote:

As I've been told to avoid Eagle's own autorouter, and Electra etc.

being too expensive, I kept searching and found something that claims to

be a free cost autorouter, but you have to run it over a website, no

downloads. Anyone else tried it and have comments?

http://www.freerouting.net/

I use Eagle's autorouter for 90% of the jobs I do, Electra for the

remaining 10%. There is nothing wrong with Eagle's autorouter. Will it

do as good a job as hand-routing? No. Does it matter? No -- not for 90%

of the jobs I do. The electrons still get from point A to point B. For

the 10% of the traces that are critical, route those by hand first then

let Eagle loose on the non-critical stuff.

I really can't understand why people would try to steer you away from

Eagle's autorouter. It's a tool. All tools have benefits and

limitations, and it is important that you understand what you're doing

and when a tool is or is not right for the job.

My experience is 20 pcb's last few year with Eagle, and I have used

autorouter 100%.

When seeing stupide things using router, I try figuring out why, reorganise,

route in another order.

So, I stick to it...

Christen

On 10/12/2010 12:03 PM, Bill Toner wrote:

As I've been told to avoid Eagle's own autorouter, and Electra etc.

being too expensive, I kept searching and found something that claims to

be a free cost autorouter, but you have to run it over a website, no

downloads. Anyone else tried it and have comments?

http://www.freerouting.net

don't know why someone told you to avoid EAGLE autorouter, nothing wrong

with it.

you do see a lot of comments on these forums saying NOT to avoid MANUAL

routing, but that is not the same thing. No autorouter can fully replace

manual routing on critical circuits. And many simple boards are just as

easy to do manually as auto.

What might be useful is a new tutorial block in the EAGLE documentation

on advanced autorouter usage and general advice on how to route a board.

Meaning, route any tracks with special requirements by hand first, set

autorouter to drop vias as Jorge recommends, routing power traces only

and using classes, why/how to set routing grid ( VFAQ ), what do various

router passes try to accomplish ( I think this is already in there, at

least  a little ), how to customize router settings to get the board you

want ( what each setting does ), what tasks are typically part of clean

up, when and how to use more passes as Olin has indicated he uses a lot.

Any other ideas what could be included?

Well. Autorouter is very limitied, I mean not "eagle" but to make a good

layout with high speed, low EMC, meet all rules to meet for CE. Well I use

autorouter juste if the board is for a test or have no speed no CPU.

I have try "Freerouting" because you can push & drawing a new trace, it is

very usefull and I dream to have it in Eagle on day.

But I have not quite "understand" or found the way to use it. Some time, I

can not route a net, some time it's move all trace, make some "funy" angle.

Well it is using to much time to use for a good layout.

But if someone has use it, please tell me what I have not understand.

Thierry

"Gary Gofstein" <nospam@use.forum.net> skrev i melding

news:i92n03$11e$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

On 10/12/2010 12:03 PM, Bill Toner wrote:

>> As I've been told to avoid Eagle's own autorouter, and Electra etc.

>> being too expensive, I kept searching and found something that claims to

>> be a free cost autorouter, but you have to run it over a website, no

>> downloads. Anyone else tried it and have comments?

>> http://www.freerouting.net

 

don't know why someone told you to avoid EAGLE autorouter, nothing wrong

with it.

 

you do see a lot of comments on these forums saying NOT to avoid MANUAL

routing, but that is not the same thing. No autorouter can fully replace

manual routing on critical circuits. And many simple boards are just as

easy to do manually as auto.

 

What might be useful is a new tutorial block in the EAGLE documentation on

advanced autorouter usage and general advice on how to route a board.

Meaning, route any tracks with special requirements by hand first, set

autorouter to drop vias as Jorge recommends, routing power traces only and

using classes, why/how to set routing grid ( VFAQ ), what do various

router passes try to accomplish ( I think this is already in there, at

least  a little ), how to customize router settings to get the board you

want ( what each setting does ), what tasks are typically part of clean

up, when and how to use more passes as Olin has indicated he uses a lot.

 

Any other ideas what could be included?

 

I am starting from one week ago with no experience with Eagle or with

Freerouting (my background is with Orcad for schematics, and PADS for

layout).

I just tried a very trivial circuit in Eagle. I tried manual routing, Eagle

autoroute and Freerouting autoroute.  There was more work to export via ULP

and re-import the scr file for use with Freerouting, but to my eye it did a

better job in this particular case (niave user, trivial board, no setup)

than Eagle's autorouter did. For what little that's worth!  It was also fun

to play around with the push function, and curved traces.

-John B

"Bill Toner" <wtoner@atmel.com> wrote in message

news:i92bmb$flp$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

As I've been told to avoid Eagle's own autorouter, and Electra etc. being

too expensive, I kept searching and found something that claims to be a

free cost autorouter, but you have to run it over a website, no downloads.

Anyone else tried it and have comments?

http://www.freerouting.net/

I've used some really bad autorouters, Eagle is not one of them, actually

it's quite good and we use it for a lot of tasks. If you expect an

autorouter to compete with manual trace by trace you're not being realistic.

Set it up right and it will work well.

Rob

"Bill Toner" <wtoner@atmel.com> wrote in message

news:i92bmb$flp$1@cheetah.cadsoft.de...

As I've been told to avoid Eagle's own autorouter, and Electra etc. being

too expensive, I kept searching and found something that claims to be a

free cost autorouter, but you have to run it over a website, no downloads.

Anyone else tried it and have comments?

http://www.freerouting.net/

I've used eagle autorouter on and off for years, moving parts around helps

It is no quite polite to speak using no good words about Eagle, we are hosted into his forum, but ...

Attached 4 finished routed boards:

1- Eagle            not finished     vote --

2- Electra          finished          vote 6

3- FreeRouting   finished          vote 8

4- EagleScr       finished          vote 10   all signals with the name, a script with "auto signal-name;" in the best sequence, a heavy job.

"Autoroute is a tool", what does it mean? Every application program is a tool, bad, so-and-so, good.

Trabant and Mercedes are both cars, both are tools to move people.

I suggest to Cadsoft-Eagle-Owners to break their "money box" to buy the FreeRouting tool.

I will continue to use Eagle-Autorouter. FreeRouting and Electra used only for the benchmark.