[chbot] New open source schematic/ PCB layout tool + community site

[Volker Kuhlmann]

On Tue 11 Sep 2012 09:24:43 NZST +1200, Charles Manning wrote:

> http://fritzing.org/

A university project that started a little while ago. The basic idea is
to use SVG for all the vector objects like schematic symbols, foot
prints, and 3D renderings. Being completely open source it has no
arbitrary restrictions.

The downside is that all the SVG is extremely slow. It also seems no-one
is using it for schematic capture, only for PCB layout. Of all the
fritzing projects on the website I don't remember seeing one that had a
schematic at all. It is possible that that is because it is practically
unusable, but that's not something I confirm, just suspect.

The feature of being able to draw a breadboard layout may be good for a
university teaching tool, but is not something I personally have any use
for.

It may be that gEDA is a better choice of open source tools, see 
http://geda.seul.org
In particular KiCad seems quite good.

Some PCB manufacturers even give explicit instructions for kicad,
although the bottom line is that it doesn't really matter because
everything goes through gerber anyway and all programs can generate
that.

Volker

-- 
Volker Kuhlmann
http://volker.dnsalias.net/	Please do not CC list postings to me.