CadSoft will enhance Premier Farnell and element14

Hello Kamila,

the current version offers a seach function only. We are working on further improvements, so our aim is to allow the customer to place an order as well.

Regards,
Richard

Hello,

I'd like to know whether it is possible to place orders with Farnell through DesignLink as it links to Farnell's website or is it only possible to search for products?

Thank you.

I too would love to see some additional flexibility in the pricing structure. Eagle is a great tool for a small (read: VERY small) manufacturer and the pricing is generally good but the board size limit is the problem.

I want to design boards with a few large components or connectors for ease of integration into extisting equipment but I cant make the board big enough in Eagle for what i can afford to pay!

An increase in the board size but maintain the limit on layers to say 4 and schematic sheets to 9 or 10 would be a good compromise?

Its got my stuffed how you can design a 99 sheet schematic and jam it on a 160x100mm board anyway! I've done a couple of tests with the "free" version as an eval and could fit a quite advanced deisgn into the 1 schamtic sheet and tiny board!

I'm excited at the possibility of new developments for Eagle. As a hobbyist electronics tinkerer, I've found Eagle to be a very good cross-platform tool for my small projects, certainly better and more stable than the freeware alternatives, but I've started to run up against the freeware limit in board size.

Right now the hobbyist "Maker" market is very hot. Companies like Adafruit and Sparkfun and Make magazine are really cashing in on this and a lot of people are entering the low-end electronics design market. I'm definitely not a market expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but it feels like a great time to introduce a "Maker's Edition" of Eagle.  The problem for me right now is that going from a half eurocard board to a full eurocard board means buying a $498 license, even though my design is open source. I would love to see a less-expensive option for hobbyists. For example, I would be perfectly happy to pay $99-$149 for a full-eurocard, two-layer limit and no autorouting. Or, better yet, a limit on pad count rather than a limit on board size, since I often want to do a big board with few components. But I have a hard time justifying anything over a $200 hard-limit for my purposes, and I suspect that's going to be a pretty common price point limit for electronics hobbyists who are getting more serious.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on your purchase of CadSoft. Good luck, and best wishes!

I've just received this statement from the company on CadSoft

I do not think that bashing the Eagle code base is really appropriate. I have not seen the code and I cannot judge it therefore.

Despite my critics regarding the UI there are a many points where Eagle is much better than the competitors:

• Cadsoft is able to support 3 different Operating Systems and windowing toolkits: Mac, Linux & Windows. That is a big achievement and most probably not easy!
• The application itself is fairly stable (there were some glitches in the autorouter) – on all platforms. This is remarkable from my point of view.

I do not think that the code is unmaintainable. Nevertheless I think that an UI-refreshment is needed.

I have used Eagle for more than a year now and I must confess that I like it a lot. It does what it should do. There are things that can be improved, but nothing really gets into my way realising designs.

Comparing this to the price tag of Eagle! I think it is a great tool and I do not have any reason to switch to another tool.

So despite a aquisition often leaves a bad taste (I know every aquisition starts with 'nothing will cahnge' and ends with a lot of changes – gone through this as well) I am really happy to see that Cadsoft now has the opportunity to get some 'fresh money', hire some more developers and start improving its product. It is an opportunity.

So keep up the good work! And make it better

I agree with this last poster than short of open-sourcing the application, open sourcing the file formats would be a great plus already. There are tools that works with Eagle (checked Freerouting.net already ? do !) that would benefit a lot and enhance Eagle at the same time.. It might also allow interaction with "qucs" or ltspice circuit simulators.

As for the aquisition as such, my worry is that Eagle is/would be impossible to have /anyone/ take it over. It's a 1980's codebase, I've seen a few of these projects over the years, it's usualy enough to go and jump out of the nearest window. I've have 25 years experience as a pro software dev, and just having a look at the look&feel of the application I'd probably want to run far & wide to NOT see the code :-)

So for me the original developers must continue on, otherwise the product will probably die.

If improvements are to be made, I'd really like the already mentioned BOM tools, and possibly a way to have a way to import/export (farnell, but please not just farnell :-)) orders part numbers, link to datasheet, and of course the library item if available...

Also a way to have "blocks" would be invaluable. Right now you can copy a bit of schematic, but not the related routing that is sometime quite a pain to re-do.

And with element14 you possibly have just the right frontal for it all!

I am using Eagle CAD for about a year now and I really like it. I bought the Light version and until now everything worked fine. Most things I do with it are small and easy circuits, all open sourced, nothing too complicated, so I can live with the limitations of the Light version.

So thumbs up for this piece of software. There is a steep learning curve, but after managing that, it looks like I can do almost everything.

But, of course, there are always some things that could get better

I would love to see, what interactive-matter noted already, a way to share components, footprints, building blocks, etc. online. I want a database, with which I can connect through Eagle CAD, where I can search for a e.g. component footprint. If it's not there, I can do my own and upload my version to share it with others. That would be great!

One step into that direction would be to have the file formats opened up. Until now there is no design-, footprint-, board-format, that is open. At least to my knowledge. Opening the file formats would enable us to write software that could e.g. combine some components into a library.

Just my 2 cents.

Alex

Isn't that what Open Source Hardware is all about?

We (I just count me in as Open Source Hardware developer - even If I am an humble one) develop funny or even innovative designs that can be used by other.

We are happy to share - but most of us want a share if money is involved (I personally - and pobably many others us an CC Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License – it is ok, to use my designs as long as you don't make money and state that it was taken from me). I am happy to learn from others and take their designs. (BTW: Why aren't reference Designs & application note designs not publishe under CC as well?)

I think regarding OSH – there is a vivid discussion in the professional scene. & thats good!

Thanks,

I know it must be an arkward situation. Farnell now owns elemnt14 & CadSoft and everybody is epexcting Eagle improvements from you. But the CadSoft guys will probablyhave their own concerns regarding the aquisition (I was working in a company that was bought some time ago – so I think I know how it feels like).

But it is nice that you take the community thing serious – and by that you can hopefully show that the community is taking this serious as well.