RoadTest: Autodesk EAGLE PCB Design Software, Premium (1yr)
Author: ipv1
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Independent Products
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: Cadence OrCAD, KiCAD
What were the biggest problems encountered?: Bugs and missing tutorials on a workflow
Detailed Review:
Making PCBs has come a long way from designs that were drawn by hand and took long hours to debug. Computer Aided Design or CAD has to be one of the best things that happened to engineers and makers alike. PCB fabrication services like OSHPark and SeeedStudios Fusion have been a game changer and has raised the bar on DIY. PCB design tools need to become simpler and smarter to allow beginners to get involved and more so to allow experienced professionals get the job done without jumping through a lot of hoops.
Eagle PCB was one of those tools that got people making PCBs and their free version was the most used tool for Open Source Hardware enthusiasts. Limitations of 2 layers and 80 sq-cm rarely were a problem for basic projects and the full version added a few more features for the professionals. Everyone using Eagle were happy.
When Autodesk acquired Eagle and offered a subscription model, the online forums were on fire with mixed feelings. In this review I go through the features that Autodesk brought to the table and briefly touch on the issue of subscription model and how it affects the maker community.
KiCAD is gaining popularity and the maker community is accepting it as the de facto standard for a number of reasons. I will not be debating the merits of KiCAD or Eagle or do a comparison here but would like to say just this.
KiCAD and Autodesk Eagle are two different animals. KiCAD is open source and comes with no support or warranty. It is evolving and if you mess up a project or if it misbehaves all you can do is get support from online forums. This works for experienced professionals and DIY projects but not for professional environments where deadlines and results matter. Autodesk Eagle comes with support for dedicated staff that get paid to answer your questions. This matters if you get stuck doing something or hit a bug or glitch.
I have compared Eagle and OrCAD in the past (google it!) and both can be compared to Altium as well. I am going to focus on Autodesk’s offering in this writing and list out some points that I found good and bad and it is up to you to figure out if makes a difference to you or not.
Cadsoft Eagle has been used by so many pro makers and DIY people including the great people at Sparkfun electronics as well as Adafruit Industries. They still use Eagle to design their products and have supplied everything from footprints to schematics to layouts for their OSHW projects online. This matters because someone with a company and years of experience is making CAD drawings and libraries and giving it to you for free. Wurth Electronics provides extensive libraries in Eagle for their parts that can be used in your PCBs.
This is important because it takes the guesswork out of your design flow and reduces the iterations in your design. You can lay out a PCB and have fewer errors due to footprint mismatches and missing components. With the new features in Eagle such as Modular Design Blocks, reuse of existing designs becomes easy and we will take a look at that in a proceeding section. That itself is something worth your time.
I already had an account with Autodesk so when I got a license for this roadtest, I just got an email saying that a license had been added to my account. All I had to do was download the free trail and after installing it on my Macbook, I simply logged in and the welcome screen was indicative of the premium license.
Easy License activation experience
You have to login every time you reboot your computer(Well mostly)
The Control Panel is where you start off and most users will be familiar with this screen. The exciting thing is the third item titled Design Blocks.
As you can see, it comes prebuilt with a few blocks and a dedicated folder named Adafruit. Lady Ada seems to be busy helping out and it is wonderful to know.
The design blocks range from simple jumpers and indicator LEDs, all the way up to the complete schematic and layout of modules such as the Bluetooth LE boards. These can be dragged and dropped into your new design without having to worry about the layout or the footprints. More on this later.
Makes reuse of blocks easy
Once the basic exploration is complete, I start by setting up the tool itself. This includes pointing eagle to the directories where my libraries, scripts and projects reside. The menu options are simple and easy to use.
I want to start of this review with a small tutorial on creating libraries and components. In some cases it becomes essential to make your own library and components and to understand how this works, I have prepared a small video.
As you can see creating new components does not take too long nor is it too complicated. Once the steps are followed correctly, the end result is precision with satisfaction as a byproduct. There are a number of workflows and I won’t go into those here since this is a review.
The point is that creating your own components has gotten easier and there is a lot of support on the internet which applies to the paid as well as the free version of the software.
EDIT: Here are a few after shots for people looking to create new components:
1. rachaelp had a awesome video on her workflow for creating new parts at Creating a package in Autodesk EAGLE and the complete blog post at EAGLE Tutorial: Library Part Creation Part 1 - Creating Packages so check it out as well.
2. shabaz provides us with his amazing tool for creating foot prints which can be downloaded from GitHub
3. There is a hidden gem pointed out to by techsupport which is called "Make-symbol-device-package-bsdl.ulp". I will be adding a video for it next so stay tuned.
One of the latest features in Autodesk Eagle 8.x is design blocks. The concept is to be able to divide your design into predefined blocks that can be prepared separately. This makes it possible to not only reuse parts of the system but also enables something which was previously missing – disconnected flows.
Now multiple designers on the same team can design parts of the final design in blocks and then send them to their lead design to be merged into a singular design. A small video shows how to use this tool.
I present a feature request here that unlike OrCAD and KiCAD, Eagle accesses Schematic as well as layout simultaneously. In many cases the team is divided into people who take care of these two activities separately. I would love to see a design flow by Autodesk to allow for a disconnected design.
Design Blocks allow for distributed workflows and realtime sync is great for one man teams.
Realtime sync may not work for larger teams
This is something that is especially useful for someone like me who does rapid prototypes. Eagle now allows for an export of a PCB to ECAD.io where a 3D model is generated which includes components and headers alike. Then this model can be imported into Fusion 360 for creating enclosures and render previews of the final product. In the video below I take a look at the steps to successfully to just that.
Fusion 360 did not like me recording and encoding while rendering so the video is a bit short but I assure you that the design can be as elaborate as you would like.
The last thing I want to touch on is routing which is the bread and butter of a PCB ECAD tool. I found that the tools have matured and the semi autorouter has becomes very useful and makes the software worth using. I did find some bugs though so take a look at the video below for a demo.
The follow me router is brilliant. EDIT: The Obstacle Avoidance feature for the manual routing tool is brilliant! Thanks rachaelp. I seemed to have missed the follow me router and will be adding a video clip for the same. 
BUGS!
I have just touched the surface of this great software and laid the groundwork for you to explore it for yourself. I found some great features and some bugs but all in all the software has evolved over the years. I am still using OrCAD, KiCAD and Eagle all at the same time because of various restrictions but with this new offering and features, I am persuaded to use Eagle a bit more.
I would like to see a disconnected workflow for the schematic and layout and also see a student version with lesser restrictions.(EDIT
: I am told that it is already available for students so yay!) and I am using Fusion 360 and my only incentive for using KiCAD is that I can make larger boards. If Autodesk can come up with a plan to give a more flexible free versions to makers in return for adding credit to Autodesk in their design, it could add a maker base to the software. Users could upload the designs to a gallery and Autodesk could show these off as a part of their portfolio.
I think I will be using Eagle till my license runs out and will pay if my budget allows. I use OrCAD for work and that is not my decision so no changes there. Full marks to Autodesk for taking a great software and making it better. I expect the futures is bright for the Eagle.
Special thanks to Autodesk, rscasny e14phil for the opportunity and support.
Top Comments
You also asked in your library video if anybody had a quicker way of drawing packages. I've created a LOT of packages so have got quite good at it now so I have some techniques which will speed things…
Hi Inderpreet,
Great review! I have a couple of tools here if you're interested, these can speed up creation of specific parts.
The most useful one for me is the smd_tool, it creates any arbitrary SOIC…
Thanks rachaelp and I will be looking forward to it.
shabaz sir that is wonderful. I will add a usage video of the recommended script. I originally planned to do a segment on the use of ULPs but omitted…