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 A Guide to online information about: Printed
Circuit Board
PCB Software listed alphabetically: Because some of the prices are in different formats you may find The Universal Currency Converter of some use.
"ACCEL EDA is a moderately priced, yet powerful CAE/CAD product line for printed circuit board design, for the Windows 95/NT operating system. ACCEL EDA covers all facets of electronic design, from design entry and management, to analysis and documentation." ACCEL EDA suite of printed circuit design tools includes the following products: ACCEL Schematic: Schematic entry You can request the ACCEL EDA multimedia CD by filling out a form under the Products section. I saw nothing about what the limitations of this demo CD might be. For pricing you are asked to call your local reseller, for which they supply a list. There are several files such as FAQs under the Support area. Accel has bought some of the
older PCB programs/companies over the years such as Tango and P-CAD. EZ-Route Software includes a full schematic design and capture, an interactive symbol editor, a professional printed circuit-board design and layout, and automatic routing. Both versions for Windows 95 and MS-DOS are available. All products are available on a 14-day trial basis. Price ranges $249 to $695. Electronic Symbols includes symbols for electronics, printed circuit-board layouts, integrated circuits, and electrical-plant power generation and distribution. Personally using an AutoCad to do a circuit-board layout seems like a case of, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail." However, there are people who are getting the results they want with this method.
ADI's Pro Circuit Builder suite of software covers the printed circuit design (CAD), fabrication (CAM) and assembly (CIM) industry. Much like the electrical design simulation packages offered today, Pro Circuit Builder simulates the manufacturing processes required to produce an operational circuit board. Pro Circuit Builder addresses one of the most important but most overlooked aspect of making a circuit board. After you have the bare board in hand, you have to stuff it with parts. The CIM section allows for coloring of assembly drawings for the stuffing phase of production. For pricing information you are
asked to contact them via e-mail. There was nothing about a
demo on the site.
Bartels Rip-Up/Retry Router has been enhanced to a complete family of EDA programs including schematic capture, simulation, PCB design, and ASIC/IC layout, known under the name Bartels AutoEngineer. All programs of the Bartels AutoEngineer family use a single common object-oriented database and the Bartels user environment (framework), thus the design of most complex PCB boards becomes an easy task. Pricing starts at EUR 2,490 for an educational system with reduced functionality to EUR 5,788.40 for the professional version. It is available for these platforms: Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 3.x, OS/2 Warp WIN/OS2, MS-DOS (protected mode), Linux Kernel 2.0.x (Ethernet Card required) on PC Pentium II/Pro, Pentium, '486Dx. A demo version can be downloaded for Windows 95 and Linux, other platform demos are supplied on CD.
Best Proto BPECS: PCB Circuit Design Package.
New 32-bit BPECS only $29.95! Yes, twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents! What you don't get for $29.95: multipage schematics, design rules check, import schematics from various foreign formats. However, you get everything else you might want, even things that some of the more expensive packages don't have (like postscript output and autorouter). A version is available for download. It was not clear if this was the program or a demo. I played with the program a bit and ran into no limits in functionality. I know the past 16-bit versions of the program were fully functional, but required to you to save your work and exit every five minutes unless you registered it. I was disappointed that the autorouter always wanted to make right angle turns, but for the price it is hard to go wrong. A library of Microchip parts is available for download. For Windows 95, 98, or NT.
If
you would like to add any information on this topic or request a
Circuit Cellar
provides up to date information for engineers, www.circuitcellar.com
for more information and additional articles.
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