Answering A Q About Board Design, and What Has Been Going On

[smallbearelec]

I have actually had a few minutes to do something other than queue orders; thanks for respecting our need to recover! A fella asked what software I recommend for board layout, so I am posting my response and inviting the regulars to fill in the gaps.

As for the rest, we are working!...filling backed-up orders and beginning to gear up for next year. I rented storage space today and will be giving more time to re-working the stock list. I'll be back soon! Here's my response to that question:

Knowing your purposes is important, because it takes a fair investment of time to learn to use a board-making tool. Once learned, it's a chore to get used to a new one.

If you are doing only a few simple boards for yourself and never need to have a factory do boards for you, you can do the layout using an ordinary draw program. I have successfully used MS Paint, Jasc Paint Shop and Power Point. Visio or CorelDraw, if you know these, would also surely work.

One thing that these programs will not do is convert your layout to the Gerber format that is used as input for computer-controlled machines. If you want to deal with a fabricator--or think you might at some point--it is worth learning to use Ivex's WinBoard (which I have used), Easy Trax, or one of the many other free or low-cost dedicated board-design packages out there. I am sure that the people on the DIY forums will respond with their favorites, as this is definitely one of the top 20 or so FAQs.

Another resources to look into is a service that provides its proprietary free design software and will make a short run of boards for you at a reasonable price. I think one such service is PCB Express? Again, the forumites will know the exact URLs. Now that I think about it, I'm going to post this response! You'll see it shortly at http://www.diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/

Regards To All, and a Happy New Year of joyous, growly noise!
Steve Daniels