Re: FreeRouter No longer available. Long term plans for Board layouts

I think going to a for-pay solution would really make it hard for new people to help out with the project.

For example, I'm doing the run of the new ECB 6x0x board, and after Andrew L sent the EDA files over to me, John C and I found a small issue that needed to be fixed before we could make boards. So I went into KiCad and fixed it. If it were done in some commercial program, I would have had to bug Andrew L about it (and he's pretty busy these days). I'm working on my first "new" board design which is an ECB bus monitor extended out from the original 8-bit data / 16-bit address format to 16/24 - and Andrew L was able to share the EDA files with me to get me going.

Maybe on the S-100 side it's less of an issue as less people are making new boards and the design seems to be concentrated with you.

Also, the FSF has offered some legal support, so maybe this will all get cleared up.

On Sunday, June 22, 2014 3:41:53 PM UTC-7, monahanz wrote:

It looks like the http://www.freerouting.net/ web site for FreeRouter is no longer available!

This leaves us with a big problem making PC boards with KiCad. (Fortunately I happen to have the PC version here for my own use), but it opens up a general question as to how we do PC boards (S100 and others) in the future.

Personally I'm having a hard time getting things done with KiCad. The PCBNew program seems (to me) very "finicy" in making files for Freerouter.

I'm wondering what other people think about a more "All-in-one" PC CAD program. I once used a program called DipTrace (they have a free version for up to 500 pins to try it out). See here http://diptrace.com/. The thing that impressed me was the speed in which it converted the schematic into an actual board file and Gurber files. There was only one program, one interface. Personally I would spring for paying for the 1000 pin commercial version (or heigher) , I and perhaps others, could run batches for others.

The main issue is that for any program we would have to build a library for the S100 connector, board dimensions and presumably a number of other things.

I would be interested in hearing comments by others on a way to proceed. Has anybody else used CAD programs they like. Anybody got experience with DipTrace

John