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Altium CircuitStudio
Altium CircuitStudio Forum Altium Circuit Studio Development???
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Altium Circuit Studio Development???

engineereddownunder
engineereddownunder over 6 years ago

My license for Circuit Studio has just come up for renewal, and after just double checking there has been next to no activity in the development world around Circuit Studio - is it worth renewing the license or is this product a dead duck? The last version release was in May last year with apologies for how little it contained and promises of a more major release later in the year - which never came, and which has been followed up by silence (as far as I can tell) from Altium... Thoughts? Anyone seen a recent roadmap for this software? I actually really like the software but don't want to pour money into something that is not being actively developed.

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  • lamabrew
    lamabrew over 6 years ago in reply to e14softwareuk +4
    Only because I just had lunch with a friend today that's looking to move off PADS and thought CS might be a good fit and was asking me questions... IMHO Altium is shooting themselves in the foot (feet…
  • IanJ
    IanJ over 5 years ago in reply to frog +4
    With Autodesk's announcement & video showing Fusion360 & Eagle integration (bloody hell it looks good seeing Eagle with a ribbon)......so surely, but surely Altium will step up the process of developing…
  • engineereddownunder
    engineereddownunder over 5 years ago +3
    So I have been pushing for some more information from element14 and Altium and got a reply which sounds promising (from element14 APAC Technical): There's definitely a major CircuitStudio version coming…
  • batuu
    batuu over 6 years ago

    Same situation here. The silence on such questions is depressing ... image Altium appears to be massively strengthening its marketing and sales activities for Altium Designer. They don't care about the CS users. The only way to grab their attention is probably to throw in a lot of money and buy an upgrade to AD.

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  • frog
    frog over 6 years ago

    Agreed, I hope I've been an active supporter of CS but I can't see that I'm getting much back for my subscription.

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  • sstallion
    sstallion over 6 years ago in reply to frog

    I keeping hoping 2.0 is just around the corner, but it's been over a year since 1.5 was released. By chance, I had a conversation with an Altium rep this morning about purchasing AD - they're still offering a 40% discount until the end of June to switch from an existing tool (even CS) to AD. I'm considering it, but given I still have a couple of years of maintenance left on CS I don't want to waste the money (not to mention the 1.8K USD maintenance for AD is exorbitant).

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  • frog
    frog over 6 years ago

    I'm bumping this thread in the hope that there will be some kind of official response...

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  • engineereddownunder
    engineereddownunder over 6 years ago in reply to frog

    Yes thank-you, was about to do that myself - do Altium even look at this forum?

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  • frog
    frog over 6 years ago in reply to engineereddownunder

    To the best of my knowledge they don't, but hero and general good bloke Peter Barnard does, and may know whom to ask.

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  • e14softwareuk
    e14softwareuk over 6 years ago in reply to frog

    Hi Frog / Jeremy. Altium do look at the forums but only occasionally post. I'm in regular contact with Altium but at present they don't have any plans regarding the next version of CircuitStudio that can be made public. They are well aware users are asking the question and I personally expect there to be an update in due course.

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  • engineereddownunder
    engineereddownunder over 6 years ago in reply to e14softwareuk

    Thanks Peter, its nice to know something is going on in the background - concern is simply that if the Altium team have dropped the product without telling anyone then continuing support would be a waste of time. Any news from Altium would be better than complete silence, even if its something along the lines of the product development roadmap is being stretched out, hence the fact no updates have been seen as expected late last year (if that was the case). Appreciate your input!

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  • lamabrew
    lamabrew over 6 years ago in reply to e14softwareuk

    Only because I just had lunch with a friend today that's looking to move off PADS and thought CS might be a good fit and was asking me questions...

     

    IMHO Altium is shooting themselves in the foot (feet?) badly with no solid roadmap plans and no apparent commitment to a mid-level product. It's going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy that it fails in the marketplace.

     

    I suspect at this point that many people that would consider switching to CS won't because of fear of spending time on a dead-end tool.  Those stagnant sales numbers then become the 'proof' that there's no market here and all of us that did buy into CS in the past will be tossed in the bin.

     

    I would have liked to promote CS as a solid offering with a bright future for someone doing non-complex designs on non-daily basis, but really couldn't do that given the uncertainty.  (For him the lack of built in 3D output in PADS has him looking for a better option, as well as he felt that since the sale of Mentor that PADS is being under-invested in/left to die a quiet death...certainly CS 3D output is killer, but I can't argue against under-investment.)

     

    For me, the three things that I really would like to see get addressed soon are:

    • Absolutely no useful library revision control. You can't open a design and get a report of where the design database and library databases are out of sync, nor any intelligent way to decide what should be synced (i.e. there are plenty of good reasons to not move a specific component to a later rev) nor a way to handle merging parameters that might be in conflict. (oh and please fix the wonkiness in using integrated libraries when updating).
    • No support for PCB panelization unless you do a hacky work around.  For me 80% of the PCBs have to be panelized, and I have reasons to control that vs. letting the fab or assembly house do whatever they feel like.
    • Make variants useful.  i.e. allow for different components in the same position (like where the same PCB for a power board can be built to output two different voltages by changing a resistor...).  Yeah you can do it by manually editing the BOM, but that opens up so many possibilities for error...

     

    For me AD is way overkill both in capability and price relative to what I need at present.  Of course in the future maybe my designs do start needing "big iron" CAD but the experience with CS isn't leaving me with a positive vibe about Altium.

     

    This forum and help from Peter are really positive aspects to CS but there's only so far that can go.  So I'll add my voice to the chorus of users asking for some indication that Altium can find a way to make CS successful and continue to grow it.

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  • frog
    frog over 5 years ago in reply to frog

    I'm bumping this thread again in the hope that there will be some kind of official response...

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