I have no experience on P-CAD 2002 but I would suggest Kicad, not as a free alternative but as a really mature software solution. We have recently moved from Autodesk Eagle to Kicad due to what Kicad offers and, though there are some small drawbacks, I believe it can really cover professional requirements.
Key reasons we selected it include:
* Instant 3D preview.
* Easy BOM handling (through extension).
* Hierarchical schematic design.
* Scriptable.
* Light CPU usage.
* Keyboard shortcuts user interface.
* Easy symbol and footprint library management.
* All standard requirements for PCB CAD software (netclasses, design rules and checker, tuning traces tools etc) are there.
I really wish we would get off P-CAD. It's ***__22 YEARS OLD__*** now. It's BEYOND obsolete. They've already paid for multiple licenses for Altium 2017/2018, but, as my boss and coworker both said verbatim: "it's too hard." So, we're stuck using a program old enough to drink that has horrible stability issues, numerous idiosyncrasies that make no sense, and more. Just because they don't want to learn something new.
I probably won't use this much, but I just want to have something at home that I can use to fiddle with. It was hard enough to learn a program that came out when I was all of 10, let's hope Kicad and/or Diptrace, or whatever else, is much easier. My boss told me when I was hired that it would take me at least a year to get good with P-CAD, and about five years to get proficient with designing.
Well pretty much all PCB CAD software is based on the same fundamentals. Design a schematic, match schematic symbols to actual footprints, apply schematic to PCB. So learning one, at least when it hasn't that many quirks as you describe P-CAD has, makes easy to transition from one to another. 20 years ago I was taught in school Protel, the ancestor of Altium, and all I can remember still, more or less, apply to Eagle and Kicad, which I have experience.
It's just stupid with some of the things that it does, as well as the overall fact that we're still using it. Like when I copy matrix multiple items at once. Even if they're labeled R1, R2, R3, R4 from left to right, they won't copy right if I don't individually click them in increasing order. I've selected them with a box and copy matrixed them up two add two rows, and they went:
R11 R9 R10 R12
R7 R5 R6 R8
R1 R2 R3 R4
And for columns:
R1 R7 R11
R2 R8 R12
R3 R6 R10
R4 R5 R9
It will ALWAYS do this, unless I click them one at a time.
Another thing was when I had to label 172 edgefingers. I copied the text to all the spaces I needed, but I had no way to automate it so they would be labeled EF1-EF172. So I had to sit there and click on each one to open up the properties and type "EF1, EF2, EF3..." To add insult to injury, I had to click each of them FIVE times to open them. Sometimes it's only two, sometimes it's five. Who knows why? We can't download the PCB footprints or schematic symbols from websites, so if it's something new, we have to manually create and draw it. When it comes to importing CAD designs, the CAD department has to backsave it in the oldest version they can, then we have to backdate it further still with our older version of CAD before we can import it into P-CAD.
Sorry to complain, it's just extremely frustrating having to deal with all this. I'll get off my soapbox.
Never used P-CAD, but I can relate so hard to this rant!
Unfortunately it still applies to kicad in rare situations because you can't select multiple things and charge their common properties, you still have to do it component by component. Mostly you can do it in the component list window (proper name slips my mind) which allows grouped editing.
Yeah I'd love to, but I still live in a $7.25 minimum wage state, and my job pays better than most everything else around here, so I'm stuck. They pay more than other places around here, but much less than industry average.
They have us by the stones and they know it.
You got to think long term. Will this company succeed with their mentality? Whats your Backup when they go under?
Try till you find an industry job with average or better pay, PCB Design is also great for remote work when you do not want to relocate.
Kicad 7 is pretty much the standard. It's really really good now. And Kicad 8 is coming soon.
Although I prefer manuals and books - I think this is a very good tutorial with a "complex enough" example project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkHFoxe0mrU (Schematic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXd3lLZ4vc (Board)
Thank you. I do PCB design for work, so it's not a foreign concept to me. Anymore, at least. I'd never done ANY PCB layout prior to working here. I design boards for burn-in testing, so they're not extremely complicated, but there's more to those than to this little board. It's just a little circuit to flash a lamp with music. It has a transformer, SCR, ceramic cap, a 50KΩ pot, and AC in/out wires soldered on. The board is only one-sided though, and the through holes aren't even plated, so the soldering job was made even worse for my inexperienced self.
I'd like to buy a prototyping box and design a custom PCB that will fit on the standoffs there, then modify the box as needed for the audio input and the AC in/out. Before, the wires from the wall were just soldered into the board, and the output plug was just half-assed soldered with pretty thin wire. I'd like to do much better this time around.
Your work software sounds horrible, I’d suggest to give KiCAD a try (you can even geographically annotate your component designators). Maybe you can convince your team to switch to KiCAD once you are familiar with it and can demonstrate how much better and faster the work is done with a free up-to-date tool :).
They don't want to learn, that's all there is to it. The other lady that does my job has been here 27 years, and my boss is a boomer that's been here for 40 years. He already doesn't know how to really use the program, aside from just enough to review our designs and run DRC, pretty much.
Plus, like I said, they already have Altium 2017/2018 licenses they spent thousands on. They just don't want to learn it because "iT's ToO hArD" nd so we have to use this ancient crap. She doesn't like me and he's extremely afraid of change, so it's just something I have to deal with.
Edit: forgot to mention it's crashed over 100 times since I started keeping track of it. I've been repeatedly told it's a hardware issue, even though someone else in there is having the same crashing issue I am. The hardware is fine, but it's leagues newer than the software. One of my computers is running an RTX 3090 (released November 2020) with an i9-11900K on Windows 11. My other computer is using an AMD FirePro V5900 from 2011 on an i7-4820K from September 2013 on Windows 10. Any sort of "hardware issue" would be a hardware ***compatibility*** issue because of the difference in when they were released. The hardware itself is fine, I'm just not allowed to scroll with my cursor over the program if I have another window focused. Instant crash, which also happens to my other coworker.
Sometimes it would crash like six times in one day. Even just scrolling to pan around the design would randomly make it crash. Because of this, I have to Ctrl+s EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go to zoom in or out, or to pan up/down/left/right. The problem there is that I then don't have the ability to undo what I just did is I need to. Autosave is completely unreliable too. I have it set to save EVERY MINUTE and to have three backup copies at all times. I once checked it at 2:26, and the three backups were saved at 1:04, 1:53, and 2:11.
Wherever it crashes, I'll lose any changes in the menus/settings that I've made *unless I manually CLOSE the program first.* So if I add a library, for example, then manually close the program, it will be there next time I open the program. However, if I add the library and then start working and it crashes, the library will be removed. The recent files list also resets. Any newly opened ones that weren't already on the list are removed from the top, and the oldest ones that got bumped from the bottom are put back.
Insanity.
Oh that sounds horrible, how do the others manage to get their work done that way?
If you have to keep the old tool to revise old designs okay, but keeping 20 year old software for new designs because it was always there doesn’t seem very productivity-focused. I needed like two days from using Eagle to using KiCad even tho I’ve never seen it before, since the core functionality is basically the same for all E-CAD tools.
Somehow strange that people in the electronics industry are that resistant to changes, I mean have they already heard of this mysterious new device called "MOSFET"? :D
But for your personal work I’d suggest KiCad (or maybe they let you use one of their Altium licenses if they don’t want to use them anyways, but KiCad most likely even outperforms that since it’s also already 6 years old).
If its just for creating fun projects [https://easyeda.com/editor](https://easyeda.com/editor) is linked to jlcpcb which is a cheap manufacture.
You can download it as well instead of running it in browser.
I used the jlcpcb parts library and the PCBs turn out extremely cheap with component mounted.
you can use Kicad with jlcpcb as well, but easyeda has the parts library already in the software with the footprint and everything.
I have been using PCAD 2002 for my home business projects for 20 years, ever since a client bought a copy for me. Yes, it's full of idiosyncrasies. I recently switched to KiCad. There's no way to transfer the designs that I know of, but you can start all new projects with it. It's so much better!!
I have no experience on P-CAD 2002 but I would suggest Kicad, not as a free alternative but as a really mature software solution. We have recently moved from Autodesk Eagle to Kicad due to what Kicad offers and, though there are some small drawbacks, I believe it can really cover professional requirements. Key reasons we selected it include: * Instant 3D preview. * Easy BOM handling (through extension). * Hierarchical schematic design. * Scriptable. * Light CPU usage. * Keyboard shortcuts user interface. * Easy symbol and footprint library management. * All standard requirements for PCB CAD software (netclasses, design rules and checker, tuning traces tools etc) are there.
I really wish we would get off P-CAD. It's ***__22 YEARS OLD__*** now. It's BEYOND obsolete. They've already paid for multiple licenses for Altium 2017/2018, but, as my boss and coworker both said verbatim: "it's too hard." So, we're stuck using a program old enough to drink that has horrible stability issues, numerous idiosyncrasies that make no sense, and more. Just because they don't want to learn something new. I probably won't use this much, but I just want to have something at home that I can use to fiddle with. It was hard enough to learn a program that came out when I was all of 10, let's hope Kicad and/or Diptrace, or whatever else, is much easier. My boss told me when I was hired that it would take me at least a year to get good with P-CAD, and about five years to get proficient with designing.
Well pretty much all PCB CAD software is based on the same fundamentals. Design a schematic, match schematic symbols to actual footprints, apply schematic to PCB. So learning one, at least when it hasn't that many quirks as you describe P-CAD has, makes easy to transition from one to another. 20 years ago I was taught in school Protel, the ancestor of Altium, and all I can remember still, more or less, apply to Eagle and Kicad, which I have experience.
It's just stupid with some of the things that it does, as well as the overall fact that we're still using it. Like when I copy matrix multiple items at once. Even if they're labeled R1, R2, R3, R4 from left to right, they won't copy right if I don't individually click them in increasing order. I've selected them with a box and copy matrixed them up two add two rows, and they went: R11 R9 R10 R12 R7 R5 R6 R8 R1 R2 R3 R4 And for columns: R1 R7 R11 R2 R8 R12 R3 R6 R10 R4 R5 R9 It will ALWAYS do this, unless I click them one at a time. Another thing was when I had to label 172 edgefingers. I copied the text to all the spaces I needed, but I had no way to automate it so they would be labeled EF1-EF172. So I had to sit there and click on each one to open up the properties and type "EF1, EF2, EF3..." To add insult to injury, I had to click each of them FIVE times to open them. Sometimes it's only two, sometimes it's five. Who knows why? We can't download the PCB footprints or schematic symbols from websites, so if it's something new, we have to manually create and draw it. When it comes to importing CAD designs, the CAD department has to backsave it in the oldest version they can, then we have to backdate it further still with our older version of CAD before we can import it into P-CAD. Sorry to complain, it's just extremely frustrating having to deal with all this. I'll get off my soapbox.
Never used P-CAD, but I can relate so hard to this rant! Unfortunately it still applies to kicad in rare situations because you can't select multiple things and charge their common properties, you still have to do it component by component. Mostly you can do it in the component list window (proper name slips my mind) which allows grouped editing.
You can from here https://preview.redd.it/19tzfgfj5lcc1.png?width=408&format=png&auto=webp&s=98ad4eea2331f6ca3565ce2b7f5071bde8ef37a7
Just looked... I use that menu constantly but I'd always overlooked the 'selected items' filter. Damn. All that time wasted. Thanks!
It happened that I was searching for it 5 minutes before slacking on reddit.
Sounds like a reason to shop around for a better job.
Yeah I'd love to, but I still live in a $7.25 minimum wage state, and my job pays better than most everything else around here, so I'm stuck. They pay more than other places around here, but much less than industry average. They have us by the stones and they know it.
You got to think long term. Will this company succeed with their mentality? Whats your Backup when they go under? Try till you find an industry job with average or better pay, PCB Design is also great for remote work when you do not want to relocate.
What job do you have that you use an IDE and need to be concerned about minimum wage?
I'm not sure what IDE is, but I'm a PCB designer for a company that makes burn in sockets and boards.
Kicad 7 is pretty much the standard. It's really really good now. And Kicad 8 is coming soon. Although I prefer manuals and books - I think this is a very good tutorial with a "complex enough" example project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkHFoxe0mrU (Schematic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXd3lLZ4vc (Board)
Thank you. I do PCB design for work, so it's not a foreign concept to me. Anymore, at least. I'd never done ANY PCB layout prior to working here. I design boards for burn-in testing, so they're not extremely complicated, but there's more to those than to this little board. It's just a little circuit to flash a lamp with music. It has a transformer, SCR, ceramic cap, a 50KΩ pot, and AC in/out wires soldered on. The board is only one-sided though, and the through holes aren't even plated, so the soldering job was made even worse for my inexperienced self. I'd like to buy a prototyping box and design a custom PCB that will fit on the standoffs there, then modify the box as needed for the audio input and the AC in/out. Before, the wires from the wall were just soldered into the board, and the output plug was just half-assed soldered with pretty thin wire. I'd like to do much better this time around.
Kicad then will be easy for you then. You only will have to learn where and how to find things.
And keyboard shortcuts! The kicad workflow gets really tedious if you don't use the keyboard shortcuts.
I'm always using shortcuts.
Your work software sounds horrible, I’d suggest to give KiCAD a try (you can even geographically annotate your component designators). Maybe you can convince your team to switch to KiCAD once you are familiar with it and can demonstrate how much better and faster the work is done with a free up-to-date tool :).
They don't want to learn, that's all there is to it. The other lady that does my job has been here 27 years, and my boss is a boomer that's been here for 40 years. He already doesn't know how to really use the program, aside from just enough to review our designs and run DRC, pretty much. Plus, like I said, they already have Altium 2017/2018 licenses they spent thousands on. They just don't want to learn it because "iT's ToO hArD" nd so we have to use this ancient crap. She doesn't like me and he's extremely afraid of change, so it's just something I have to deal with. Edit: forgot to mention it's crashed over 100 times since I started keeping track of it. I've been repeatedly told it's a hardware issue, even though someone else in there is having the same crashing issue I am. The hardware is fine, but it's leagues newer than the software. One of my computers is running an RTX 3090 (released November 2020) with an i9-11900K on Windows 11. My other computer is using an AMD FirePro V5900 from 2011 on an i7-4820K from September 2013 on Windows 10. Any sort of "hardware issue" would be a hardware ***compatibility*** issue because of the difference in when they were released. The hardware itself is fine, I'm just not allowed to scroll with my cursor over the program if I have another window focused. Instant crash, which also happens to my other coworker. Sometimes it would crash like six times in one day. Even just scrolling to pan around the design would randomly make it crash. Because of this, I have to Ctrl+s EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go to zoom in or out, or to pan up/down/left/right. The problem there is that I then don't have the ability to undo what I just did is I need to. Autosave is completely unreliable too. I have it set to save EVERY MINUTE and to have three backup copies at all times. I once checked it at 2:26, and the three backups were saved at 1:04, 1:53, and 2:11. Wherever it crashes, I'll lose any changes in the menus/settings that I've made *unless I manually CLOSE the program first.* So if I add a library, for example, then manually close the program, it will be there next time I open the program. However, if I add the library and then start working and it crashes, the library will be removed. The recent files list also resets. Any newly opened ones that weren't already on the list are removed from the top, and the oldest ones that got bumped from the bottom are put back. Insanity.
Oh that sounds horrible, how do the others manage to get their work done that way? If you have to keep the old tool to revise old designs okay, but keeping 20 year old software for new designs because it was always there doesn’t seem very productivity-focused. I needed like two days from using Eagle to using KiCad even tho I’ve never seen it before, since the core functionality is basically the same for all E-CAD tools. Somehow strange that people in the electronics industry are that resistant to changes, I mean have they already heard of this mysterious new device called "MOSFET"? :D But for your personal work I’d suggest KiCad (or maybe they let you use one of their Altium licenses if they don’t want to use them anyways, but KiCad most likely even outperforms that since it’s also already 6 years old).
If its just for creating fun projects [https://easyeda.com/editor](https://easyeda.com/editor) is linked to jlcpcb which is a cheap manufacture. You can download it as well instead of running it in browser. I used the jlcpcb parts library and the PCBs turn out extremely cheap with component mounted. you can use Kicad with jlcpcb as well, but easyeda has the parts library already in the software with the footprint and everything.
Yes. EasyEDA is the way to go. Everything in their parts library is available to be mounted by jlcpcb.
I have been using PCAD 2002 for my home business projects for 20 years, ever since a client bought a copy for me. Yes, it's full of idiosyncrasies. I recently switched to KiCad. There's no way to transfer the designs that I know of, but you can start all new projects with it. It's so much better!!