034 :: EAGLE CAD testing ... 1 2 3

after using KiCad, diving into EAGLE was rather easy, the GUI due to the overflowing amount of info and stuff you can dump in it, can be a real PITA. And even if you assign hotkeys, you cant use the direct 1 key presses, you are forced to use CTRL / ALT / SHIFT to execute hotkeys.

The main advantage of EAGLE is that it has a automatic link in between schematics and the PCB layout. whatever you changed in schematics will appear in layout immediately (provided you do not close any part prematurely and cut off the link).

And it has a HUGE library of parts, the popularity of EAGLE with many hardcore PCB builders also mean you can get many real products into the library just by searching google (eg the adafruit library). EAGLE also has a quick link to realtime stocks of parts available from online retailers, on top of that, for the pros who make multilayers, there is an online PCB making "butler" of sorts.

So for those who have setup the EAGLE GUI well enough and customized the library, this is a very fast way to prototype things, and very complex things too esp SMDs! Maybe even for me it is time to setup this BEAST !!!

But for me at this point, it is to EXTRACT some bloody gcodes to mill a PCB. By using the PCB2Gcode function, select/tick isolation 1 pass, tweak the size of the minimum to 0.001 and tool to 0.1, select Gcode style and hit the make board! (i dont have a machine so i wont be tweaking any machine parts. wala, we have gcode! but im not satisfied, ima do 1 in raster, the vectorized way.

same procedure as before, grab a screen of it, PS mod it ! and clean it up.

send it to magic tracer for a crack !

(rescale it to the actual size)

and then GCODE it !!!

DXF2Gcode produced 18 pages, while direct PCB2Gcode only 9 pages.

i wonder, isit possible to just by one glance and know that 1 is better than the other?

until it goes to some machine and moves it ... it does nothing at this moment ...

however by comparison of workflow and library support (especially accuracy of pads in pcb layout), if you are doing lotsa rough prototypes non SMD, KiCad seems really good and fast, for better accuracy and selection of realtime market available parts and hence a very practical approach to SMD prototypes, EAGLE is really great

oh and BTW, this circuit works, its a PWM fan drive, works to 35v. PWM frequency by 555, varies between 28-55kHz.i proto-ed this to drive my air extractors, they consume in total about 1.4A. so now i need to make 2 of these.

and yes i am starting to love SMDs, im late into SMDs because i have never prototyped anything other than veroboards ! but once my milling machine is done ... *evil mad scientist laughter* ...

... to be continued