Is there any Good PC Board drawing Freeware or Shareware out there?

[Tom_G_2010]

Back in the day I had some great freeware that could be used to draw printed circuit board layouts and even one that would convert a schematic into a single or double sided pc board layout. Sad to say I don't even know where those 5 1/4" floppies :cool: are anymore and they would not run on my current OS even if I had the disks or a drive to read them.

I've downloaded a couple "Free" Apps only to find that they were nothing to write home about and some were setup to only feed board designs to a web based company to get them made for a hefty fee. I can etch my own boards so that's not at all what I'm looking for.

I can hand draw what I need or fake it on any number of generic drawing programs, but that's a pain compared to what I used to do with those older apps. So, I'm wondering if anyone can point me to a legit no strings attached piece of freeware or shareware for doing pc board layouts.

Thanks in advance for any advice or direction!


PS: OK, so I need to fess up, I think I still have an 8", and a couple 5 1/4" floppy drives in a box in the garage. I just can't get rid of good junk :oops:.

[Perik]

Hi Tom,

As usually there is very few or maybe none offering a "free lunch".
OK - maybe a free lunch but you have to pay double up for the dinner :p
There seems to be some kind of ”limitation” with all of them.

For my own work I use Diptrace. (http://www.diptrace.com) They use the number of PADs and layers
as the limiting factor. Otherwise the program is a full blown version.
For the free version (Non-Profit 500 PADs / 2 layers) – look here (http://www.diptrace.com/nonprofit.php).
Should cover most of your needs.

Another alternative is Eagle (never tried).
They have a free (http://www.cadsoftusa.com/download-eagle/freeware/?language=en)version limited to 100mm x 80mm size +++
which very fast become too small for our needs.

And there may be other vendors out there.
Never looked back after start using Diptrace.

[iwik]

Tom,
Rsonline has Designspark,fully blown and FREE.
Les

[Tom_G_2010]

Thanks!! I'll be trying both this evening.

[zulucat]

There is also Kicad. It's free and it runs on Windows, Mac OSX & Linux.

http://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/KiCad+EDA+Software+Suite