Re: [N8VEM-S100:4556] KiCad or ??

[Kyle Owen <kyle...@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 1:14 PM, yoda <yo...@r2d2.org> wrote:

Has it been decided what we are going to do about the lack of routing software because of the issue with freerouting.net?   I can go either way (I have squirreled away the java code - though it might make people nervous with the legal implications) - DipTrace does not look too bad if we can use the non profit version of the software.

I ask because I am going to start doing some prototyping and don't want to have to enter the schematics twice

Thanks

Dave

CERN has taken on a good chunk of KiCad maintenance lately, and has added many great features. I highly recommend sticking with KiCad and see how it grows.

I am personally confused by the need for an autorouter. Routing by hand tends to take less time than the autorouter and offers much better results in terms of via count, and address/data lines and other more sensitive traces (when operating at higher speeds) can be matched to each other. For a 4-layer board with BGAs and other high density boards, I can see why some may want an autorouter. But even for a 486, this seems overkill.

Kyle