Options for someone who needs a 120mm PCB

just built two PCB's

On 6/1/2011 12:53 PM, mojo wrote:

Hi. I am an Eagle user who has done a few open source PCBs and now wants to

work with arcade hardware that uses a 56 way edge connector. The PCB needs

to be 120mm wide to accommodate this, and I want to do schematic and PCB in

Eagle because I am familiar with it.

 

Eagle Lite only goes up to 100mm per board and the Standard version is too

expensive, especially when some of the boards will be open source. I asked

and apparently you can't take a schematic drawn in the Freeware or Lite

version and use it to create a PCB in the Standard version, which is a

shame because I might just be able to stretch to getting the Standard PCB

module on its own.

 

Is that correct? Is there any other option for creating a board of this

size? I don't want to learn another CAD package if possible but might have

to

Hi Mojo,

If you intend to make open source hardware, then you would qualify for

the Non-Profit License which is a full-fledged standard version but for

only $125.00 instead of the usual $747.00 for a commercial standard.

The only condition on the Non-Profit is that it can't be used for

commercial purposes. I know that should be understood but it's good to

be explicit with legal mumbo jumbo.

hth,

Jorge Garcia

Hi Jorge,

Thanks for that tip, it sorts out my problem nicely! All the arcade stuff

is open source, and presumably there is no problem with one person having

both an open source license and a Lite license for when I need to do

(smaller) commercial boards. I will email Cadsoft to check of course!

Can I install both versions at the same time too, or will I have to run one

in a VM? It looks like the config file would be shared but as long as each

has its own directory they should operate independently.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On second thoughts maybe the OS license is not that useful... The problem

is that the kind of gaming hardware I make is desirable to people who are

not engineers and so they always pester me to buy the boards.

I wouldn't mind just giving them away at cost price, but my time is not

free and I made that mistake before. Realistically there has to be some

compensation for my time or I have to get someone else to do assembly and

shipping, and obviously they want to be paid. Either that or just tell

people I'm not doing them and they are for personal use only.

One other potential issue is that open source hardware can be

commercialised by anyone. In other words if someone sees the design and

wants to make and sell their own boards then there isn't anything I can do

to stop them, and it would seem to be a legally grey area because I would

not be breaking my license agreement but that is clearly not what Cadsoft

intended either.

The hobby PCB fab houses often do that, e.g. you order 10 and they make 20

and sell the spares via their own web site. I'm happy with it but I'm not

sure Cadsoft would be.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

In the end I gave up. I will get Eagle Lite and just use Kicad for the one

simple PCB I need that is bigger than Eagle allows.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.