New free Altium version coming

I use the student/hobbyist version of Eagle at home, and Altium for work, so I use both tools regularly.   There are features that I really like about Eagle, and others that I prefer about Altium, and if there were a reasonably priced version of Altium available, I would probably switch to that for home use.    In my opinion - the features that I like about Eagle are the way that it keeps the schematic and the PCB in sync - I work with two screens, and making a change to the schematic on one screen is immediately reflected on the other.   Eagle is also easier to get new components for - either from the community, or generating them from scratch.   I would love it if Altium were to learn these things from Eagle.

The things that I like about Altium are the library structure and the amount of metadata that is carried.  My employer maintains our own corporate component library and the data that is in the library makes it very easy to generate complete BOMs with part descriptions, Manufacturer and distributor part numbers, live links to distributor sites so that you are alerted as to price and availability of components as you place them etc.

Altium also has better tools for generating manufacturing files such as pick & place and drill files.   Altium also provides very nice 3D rendering from within the PCB layout tool, and good (not great) signal integrity tools.   For work I do some high speed designs, and I don't think that I could do those with Eagle, but Altium is able to handle it.

The main reason that I use Eagle is that for the kind of projects that I do at home, the hobbyist version of eagle does what I need for a very reasonable price.   If I wanted to upgrade to Eagle Professional, it is still affordable for a single seat.   To purchase a minimal configuration of Altium is 4X the cost of Eagle Professional, and requires an annual maintenance contract so it is out of the question for anything other than professional use.

"Mark Sauerwald"  skrev i nyhetsmeldingen:

460407348.191411494773185.JavaMail.jive@flmspu-csapp-02.premierfarnell.com

...

In my opinion - the features that I like about Eagle are the way that it

keeps the schematic and the PCB in sync - I work with two screens,

and making a change to the schematic on one screen is immediately

reflected on the other.

I guess Altium cant do that because their philosophy is multiple departments

doing work on same project. This requires some control of whats merged in

and not, but I agree that it causes pain in the one-man projects.

The things that I like about Altium are the library structure and the

amount of metadata that is carried.

I kinda both hate and love extra metadata. I hate it when I don't know what

it is, and I hate when metadata expires (like distributors change,

manufacturer merge and change name). Some data is better when fresh. We do

that work after generating the bom here.

For work I do some high speed designs, and I don't think that I

could do those with Eagle, but Altium is able to handle it.

I do high speed with Eagle. The only think I have to agree with a stackup

config from the manufacturer, then I just follow routing rules, but I agree

I have written some ULP's to check signals for stubs, width (vs layer),

length matching and diff distances (vs layer).

"Mark Sauerwald"  skrev i nyhetsmeldingen:

460407348.191411494773185.JavaMail.jive@flmspu-csapp-02.premierfarnell.com

...

In my opinion - the features that I like about Eagle are the way that it

keeps the schematic and the PCB in sync - I work with two screens,

and making a change to the schematic on one screen is immediately

reflected on the other.

I guess Altium cant do that because their philosophy is multiple departments

doing work on same project. This requires some control of whats merged in

and not, but I agree that it causes pain in the one-man projects.

The things that I like about Altium are the library structure and the

amount of metadata that is carried.

I kinda both hate and love extra metadata. I hate it when I don't know what

it is, and I hate when metadata expires (like distributors change,

manufacturer merge and change name). Some data is better when fresh. We do

that work after generating the bom here.

For work I do some high speed designs, and I don't think that I

could do those with Eagle, but Altium is able to handle it.

I do high speed with Eagle. The only think I have to agree with a stackup

config from the manufacturer, then I just follow routing rules, but I agree

I have written some ULP's to check signals for stubs, width (vs layer),

length matching and diff distances (vs layer).