Of the two, I don't have a clear recommendation for the occasional ham user. But the free version is limited to 300 pins. DipTrace has an autorouter (not applicable for most RF work) as well as 3D board preview, which is nice eye candy. KiCAD is totally free and unlimited as well as being a capable package. If I had to compare KiCAD to the free version of DipTrace, I'd leave it up to the user to eval both. It comes with a decent autorouter in any version, BTW. That's plenty for a lot of smaller projects. Nothing wrong with it except the limitations that are imposed on the free version, of 300 pins. Since the OP listed only three packages, I'll mention the free version of DipTrace. The product stagnated for years with almost no development. It was written in the dark ages of computing by an odd German fellow who made up the editing workflow as he saw fit, not according to any existing GUI conventions. Yes, there is a lot of forum support for Eagle, as well as Youtube videos, because *everyone needs as much support as they can get* when really using Eagle. But doing them also took a lot of time and frustration. Yes, a lot of people have done a lot of medium-complexity boards with it. That doesn't mean it was good, just free. Why have so many people used Eagle in the past? Because it was by far the most popular totally free capture and layout package for many years. You can start drawing graphics that have a remarkable similarity to a PCB in 3 minutes. If you don't know, and don't want to learn, terms like footprint, net list, back annotation, go with Sprint. Looks nice on the surface, but under the hood, when you actually start to use it, it's weird and evil.ģ.) KiCAD EDA used to be a buggy joke, but in the last 2 - 3 years it's evolved in to a very respectable, totally free schematic capture and PCB layout package. It's a simple graphics editor that you can draw very simple, low pin-count PCBs with.Ģ.) Friends don't let friends learn Eagle. It's the Fisher Preschool PCB package intended for kids 2 - 7 years old. I was in the Surface mount PCB assembly business for years.ġ.) Sprint isn't a PCB layout package, it's a crude toy app. Seems like sprint might be an easier package to learn. There are some good tutorials on sparkfun'sĭoes anyone know the pros and cons of kicad vs eagle vs sprint? I haven't used anything but Eagle forĪ while and am curious why that hasn't been suggested (80 sq cm restrictionįor the free version?). I know people are discussing pcb layout software lately and it seems likeĪ lot of folks are happy with sprint. Up until Autodeskīought them it was the one package that seemed to be recommended the most. ![]() If you find it, it will not be updated or bug fixed. I used to work for a university but retired last year so Iĭon't think I can get a free license. If you are a student or work for a university you can getįree licenses. ![]() Longer free! Autodesk (the AutoCad people) bought Eagle and now it is by I suspect that one reason Eagle has not been mentioned is because it is no
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