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Hard Lessons Learned (watch out for land mines)

e14 Contributor

So here is my experience with Eaglesoft and Element14 so far and some land mines you may encounter and how to avoid them.  First of all, the libraries that are provided with the software should be immediately discarded.  Don't keep any of them, since you will either end up designing boards that use over priced parts or parts that Element 14 does not have.  Expecially avoid any parts by Farnell, since they don't sell their parts cheap nor do their libraries contain parts that they actually sell.

 

You are better off discarding their libraries and developing your own.  It is not hard to make a part in Eagle cad and if you source your parts and make the designs yourself you won't be disappointed by the irresponsible curation of non existent parts in the default libraries.

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  • Steve Owens wrote:

     

    nor do their libraries contain parts that they actually sell

    I think one should design a circuit based on the most appropriate components (appropriate for the design) that one can source. Requirements include availability, cost, performance, the ability to second-source, and so on.

    If you are designing a circuit based on whatever you can find in a CAD software library then this is not typically how the design process works.

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  • Steve Owens wrote:

     

    nor do their libraries contain parts that they actually sell

    I think one should design a circuit based on the most appropriate components (appropriate for the design) that one can source. Requirements include availability, cost, performance, the ability to second-source, and so on.

    If you are designing a circuit based on whatever you can find in a CAD software library then this is not typically how the design process works.

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  • in reply to shabaz

    To address Steve's point, I would argue that the hallmark of a useful library be that it contains parts that are readily available, at reasonable cost, with good perfomance, and have second sources?

  • in reply to shabaz

    I never use Eagle library, at least without editing . Years ago I used to copy a device from Eagle lib, then checked and edit  the copy. But today I prefer create build the device from scratch, or by using packaged from my own library...

     

    But when I create a new board, I always check is all the part I use is available ! even if I use a part from my own library ! Why ?

    - a part use in an previous design can be now 'obsolete' or at least 'not recommended for new design!'

    - A capacitor used 5 years ago could now exist in a smaller form factor.

    - ....

     

    So Yes, I always check availability, price, obsolescence  .... it's part of the job !