Special Promotion for EAGLE PCB Users

It is tempting.

I have a full Eagle license and probably will be okay for about a year. The big question for me is which package will be the next highly popular package? The ability to share designs with a large user base is important.

Eagle has a huge user base compared to other packages. What will happen to this user base?

I expect their user base to erode substantially due to the new license scheme, but will they hang on to enough market share to make it a market leader in terms of seats?

The door is open for others to take some of the user base, but are any other packages attractive enough to take a really significant share?

I think it will still be a tough decision in a year when I will be considering choices as I am not keen on the subscription model.

It is tempting.

I have a full Eagle license and probably will be okay for about a year. The big question for me is which package will be the next highly popular package? The ability to share designs with a large user base is important.

Eagle has a huge user base compared to other packages. What will happen to this user base?

I expect their user base to erode substantially due to the new license scheme, but will they hang on to enough market share to make it a market leader in terms of seats?

The door is open for others to take some of the user base, but are any other packages attractive enough to take a really significant share?

I think it will still be a tough decision in a year when I will be considering choices as I am not keen on the subscription model.

I'm not averse to subscription but the significant cost increase for 6-layer with EAGLE means CircuitStudio will be lower cost over a couple of years, based on risk assessment that 6-layer may be used for a few months per year.

However what's putting me off CircuitStudio is that when I tried their DXP product many years ago for a complete, reasonably complex project, it had far lower productivity than EAGLE. I could have done the job in half the time with EAGLE. I hope that has changed, but from the screenshots it doesn't seem to look much different. We give a lot of time learning how to use a CAD package, and the hope is it is in exchange for improving productivity.

To compound that the second reason I get cold feet with putting effort into CircuitStudio is that there have been many comments from users about strange impacts due to CircuitStudio being a deliberately cut-down product. Just one example that was concerning to me was that polygon priority could not be controlled except by the order that polygons are created. To me this seems like trying to deliberately slow down the user. They may as well have nag screens to watch an advert in exchange to allow a user to type in a priority, it is that silly.

So, for me I can't find an attractive package and I'm holding out until I hear that some of the deliberate cut-down functionality doesn't slow down productivity, and hearing more about ways that the work effort to create pads and parts and schematics and layout can be as fast compared to EAGLE, not just for CircuitStudio but for other packages too (for me I've ruled out DipTrace, I can't recall the reason but it was based on the information on their website).

So like you, I'm also waiting out for this year and postponing the decision.

I have other concerns but also concerns ... It's tempting but for now it is not the worth. There are some easy questions that I will see how can be answered and how easy it is to do.

How to convert Eagle previous projects to Altium?

How to reuse the custom libraries already designed?

How is possible to generate a g-code for milling prototypes with Altium? This is my typical pre-prototyping PCB phase to avoid making many PCB circuits prototyping outside and this save an incredible amount of fime.

These are just the most important concerns I have. I have just downloaded now the free trial to have time at least to make a test before consciously deciding what to do.

Last but not least, Eagle has both Mac and Windows versions, and Altium ?

A reply by the author of this post is also welcome.

Enrico

I'm personally not jumping from EAGLE to Altium. I have a v7 Pro license so the logical jump "up" for me would be Altium Designer and not Circuit Studio but even with their 40% off promotion it is still WAY more money than EAGLE even before you factor in the cost of the subscription required to be able to access support and updates after the first year which is something people seem to forget. Add in that it's Windows only so I would need to boot into a Windows VM on my Mac to do design work and it's even less of an option.

EAGLE does have some mitigation against not being able to continue once you let your subscription lapse. Designs are still fully readable and can be exported to manufacturing in the free version and you can always drop back to v7 if you need to edit something and your v8 subscription has lapsed.

If you only need 6 layers for a small amount of time then you can upgrade your subscription to Premium for the duration of that project and then drop down to Standard or freeware when you don't need that capability.

I do think they could staunch a lot of the bleeding of the existing user base by introducing two more licensing tiers:

1) Low cost non-commercial license for Makers.

2) Intermediate level license between Standard and Premium as currently the step between the two licenses is large.

They clearly aren't going to reverse course on the subscription model. I do wish there was an option to pay a "full and final settlement" to allow the permanent use of the version you had on subscription once you let your subscription lapse but I don't know if they have the capability to implement such a thing into the subscription system or not. I don't see this happening any time soon if ever though, and being able to fall back to a v7 license mitigates a lot of the issues (for me at least) anyway.

Best Regards,

Rachael

Enrico Miglino wrote:

 

Last but not least, Eagle has both Mac and Windows versions, and Altium ?

Altium is Windows only as far as I am aware. This alone makes it worthless to me.

Shabaz, I agree with your point, but - I try always to be pragmatic - I suggest you pass over your prejudice and try a new version. We all know very well your great capabilities in testing and reporting new products so your opinion on the behaviour of last version of this product swill be very appreciated.

BTW, I confirm that one of the bigger lacks of Altium is just the single-platform support. The other non-trivial limitation is implicitly explained in the minimal requirements for the software installation:

• Windows 7 or Windows 8 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Intel Core i5 processor or equivalent
• 8 GByte RAM
• 3 GByte hard disk space (Install + User Files)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 series or AMD Radeon HD 7770, 1024MB (or more) graphics card or better, supporting DirectX 9.0c and Shader model 3 (or later)
• Dual monitors with at least 1680x1050 (widescreen) or 1600x1200 (4:3) screen resolution
• USB2.0 port if connecting to 3D Mouse
• 3D mouse for 3D PCB design, such as the Space Navigator

(got from the Altium site). This means that with smaller machines this does not works fine? Or does not work at all? What do they mean for the 3D mouse availability? I regulalrly design 3D components with complex CAD applications (e.g. Rhino and more complex too) with just a mouse or a touch or a Wacom tablet with no difficult...

Enrico

Hi Enrico,

You're absolutely right, there is no substitute for trying it out, I will do that sometime hopefully. I was just hoping that from the current user feedback I'd get warmer feet before trying it. The past DXP experience is now worth little since it was so long ago.

rachaelp it is a good point that if subscription is a road they cannot steer away from then there is a huge leap between the two licenses that could be mitigated with a third option.

The 'maker' option is something that many businesses have not executed well on. For 'makers' the old student license model doesn't work for them. And possibilities for them are more sophisticated nowadays and they don't want to be tied to severe restrictions like 2-layer. And they are more open to using free options like KiCAD.

This is a different target customer, and an ultra-low cost like $10 per _year_ (not month) would instantly get tons of effectively beta-testers for early releases of EAGLE or CircuitStudio or otherwise, i.e. Autodesk or Altium could get these users to do their testing for them.

Matlab *almost* had the right idea for 'makers' (in their case they called them home users), but their ultra-low cost was still slightly high to attract many 'makers' I suspect, and they had a broken model where you were locked out of spending more money with them for toolboxes, unless a support cost was paid.

I have used Eagle on Windows for some years, it is not so blocking for me as I am working on Mac as well as you do, but I used too a number of VM on it. Managing with projects involving hardware and firmware development it is almost impossible. As far as I know, just to mention few, Rhino for 3D printing design, AVR Studio, Cypress PSoC programming, Mill Machine control etc. etc. needs windows. Last but not least as I develop on a multiplatform environment on both VisualStudio native applications and drivers and Qt I am almost used to work on Windows, Mac and Ubuntu at least together

Remain the fact that this is a minus point to the Altium circuit designer software. Anyway I deserve further considerations on ergonomy and usability after I have installed the trial version and used it for a while (hopefully before the end of this month to decide about their offer )

Enrico

I'm not an Eagle user so don't have this problem but if I had to change PCB cads I would look very hard at Kicad. It might not do if you need heavyweight features but as a basic system it looks quite good.

If you don't mind Windows then EasyPC (which I do use) is a good basic tool, and about the same price as Altium's offer on CiruitStudio.

If you want dead cheap for home use then RS' Design Spark PCB is a free (as in beer) clone of EasyPC.

If you need heavyweight features like FPGA pin swapping, controlled impedance etc then it's probably going to cost you some serious money (but KiCad might be good enough - it supports Python scripting and has some controlled impedance features)

MK

Hi Shabaz,

frankly I am seriously approaching the Altium package just now so I can't say not so much in this moment. But about the new Eagle licensing system I am almost convinced that this move is just to exclude from their business (no matter if it is the right choice, it's up to them) all the Makers, personal users etc. etc. keeping the big companies and more interesting clients (maybe)

Kcad is the right option for makers, probably, but approaching a more professional need - despite the complexity of the PCB - I suppose that a one-shot investment for a complete tool maybe the worth.

Enrico

Hi Enrico,

Enrico Miglino wrote:

 

I have used Eagle on Windows for some years, it is not so blocking for me as I am working on Mac as well as you do, but I used too a number of VM on it. Managing with projects involving hardware and firmware development it is almost impossible. As far as I know, just to mention few, Rhino for 3D printing design, AVR Studio, Cypress PSoC programming, Mill Machine control etc. etc. needs windows.

Yes there are still tools that require windows but I have managed to largely purge it from my workflow .... except when I need to use DxDesigner (my employer has this) and have to manage our Active Directory

From your list:

Rhino is available for Mac (https://www.rhino3d.com/mac) as are Slic3r and Cura (not on your list but 3D printing related).

Yes AVR studio doesn't work but use avrdude (install from homebrew) and any other decent IDE on Mac works just fine.

Cypress PSoC, yep it looks like their tools are Windows only.... I'll avoid this then....

I don't know about your specific milling machine and what software you use but there are Mac tools e.g. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/ricecnc/id555340658?mt=12 or http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCMeshCamEasyCAMSoftware.html

Other types of tools that I use are FPGA tools and Xilinx, Altera and Microsemi (Actel) toolsets are all available under Linux as is the ModelSim simulator. They work better under Linux IMHO.

Arduino Studio is available for Mac/Linux as well as Windows as is MPLAB for PIC's. Now Microchip own Atmel I wonder if they might help facilitate AVR studio being migrated to the other platforms too.

There are just loads of tools now available that don't require Windows that it is now largely possible to avoid Windows for hardware/firmware/software design. If EAGLE went away though my only option for board design would be KiCAD and I am not happy that this is mature enough of fully featured enough to be a viable option for professional work. I think Mentor Graphics might do a Linux version of one of their most horrendously expensive PCB tools but that's about it and I couldn't justify the cost there at all.

Best Regards,

Rachael