[Ground-station] How are we set for layout tools?

[Keith Wheeler]

 An amazing amount of discussion (and some latent feelings) brought up by
me merely answering the "what layout tools do we have" question.

Next time I'll be sure to make a disclaimer that my professional day to day
use of a proprietary tool isn't meant to upset the open source gods.
Circuit Studio natively uses my nearly two decades worth of Altium
libraries and previous designs and costs $495 for a perpetual license, plus
an annual fee if you want updates. I try Kicad every year or two but find
it odd and counter-intuitive, and having the overall feel of software
people saying "wouldn't it be cool to do open source hardware tools" rather
than hardware people saying "here's what we need in open source tools". The
switching costs of learning a new (counter-intuitive to me) tool along with
importing many years of work are just too high for me. Obviously not for
everyone nor necessarily for the work ahead of us.

I'm not a retired pundit so I apologize for not having the time to play
with a tool when I have to work for a living.

I don't apologize for having volunteered my time and shameful tool skills
to do layout for an ORI fundraiser as well as other work for "the
community".  It's what we do. Even without much in the way of appreciation.

I will clarify the following:

On source files: there is an opensource altium2kicad tool for the source
files (schematic and pcb source) so any work done in this tool is not
trapped in proprietary files. And apparently early this year an Altium
importer was added to Kicad project. Additionally PCB "manufacturing" only
requires gerbers RS274x/gcode output text files, not proprietary.

All that said I really have no dog in this fight and will let you return to
your philosophical debates, I've got boards to design.

On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 7:47 PM Wally Ritchie via Ground-Station
<ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:

> Yes snapeda is a great resource. I've been using it for the past 2 years.
> It often has a part I need - sometimes with the 3d model as well.
> Generally, it's a reliable shortcut. I too have sometimes has to tweak the
> part but it's usually far less effort than building from scratch. I don't
> recall any serious errors in their parts.
>
> I wouldn't bet against autodesk and eagle. Eagle is part of their cloud
> SAAS strategy and enhances their product. I don't think they care at all
> about the workflow of hobbyists - they care about the workflows of teams
> producing commercial products. They do not care one bit about loosing
> non-paying customers to KiCad. They care about loosing paying customers to
> Altium. Perhaps someday they'll drop free versions. But it doesn't hurt
> their sales and enhances the flow of paying subscribers while getting them
> some library parts for zero investment. So it's unlikely. Autodesk has for
> years provided free versions of tools! like inventor to educational and
> non-profits like FIRST to get students familiar with their products. They
> are a billion dollar company doing quite well. They may someday have to
> overhaul the Eagle code base. But that doesn't appear to be anything in the
> near future. Eagle remains far more open than any other commercial package
> with respect to adding and extracting data and supplementing it. In any
> case there is plenty of room for KiCad and Eagle in the short term.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:49 PM John Ackermann <jra at febo.com> wrote:
>
>> That's a great synopsis, Wally.
>>
>> One unavoidable concern, and I don't have an answer for it, is the
>> learning curve where different team members are used to different tools;
>> that's much more likely in a volunteer project than a commercial
>> enterprise, I think.  Standardizing on a tool within everyone's reach helps
>> with that, but I doubt that outweighs the other arguments you're making.
>>
>> But as a tiny side point I'll mention again, just for future reference,
>> that snapeda.com seems to have a very good engine for designing symbols
>> and footprints according to some (unknown to me) standard specification,
>> and a very large collection of pre-defined parts.  I often make minor edits
>> to their files (easy to do in KiCad), but so far everything I've used from
>> them has worked -- as in physical footprint matches physical device, and
>> wires go to the right places.  (Now, keep in mind I'm dealing with far more
>> pedestrian parts than the ones you're talking about...)
>> On Jul 27, 2020, at 8:51 PM, Wally Ritchie via Ground-Station <
>> ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>
>>> 1. Few if any tools are perfect, certainly not any PCB design tools, or
>>> as John Ackermann eloquently put it - all of them suck to varying degrees.
>>> All depends on whether your outlook is half-empty or half-full, what you
>>> are trying to accomplish, and what value you place on different things -
>>> especially, time and money.
>>>
>>> 2. Generally, we are not in the business or non-business of producing
>>> tools - except maybe those that are so specialized to our tasks that they
>>> make sense, either because of the nature of the task or the learning curves
>>> associated with the alternative. So we might write some ad-hoc open-source
>>> verification tools in python instead of an expensive simulink framework -
>>> then again the latter may make more sense - it all depends on what we are
>>> trying to do and the skill sets available to the project.
>>>
>>> 3. We are embarking on a level of Engineering development on a scale not
>>> undertaken before in the Amateur community, at least with regards to the
>>> technologies we are working with - $2000 FPA chips, $800 radio chips, 12
>>> layer boards, SERDES lanes operating at 12GHz, multi-kilobuck dev boards.
>>> These many technologies are pretty far from traditional Amateur radio and
>>> hobby boards. The projects we are undertaking involve professional skill
>>> sets in many fields. Those working in these fields are accustomed to having
>>> tools able to do the job at hand. We are counting on many Amateur Radio
>>> Enthusiasts who are in fact professionals with relatively current skill
>>> sets, many with high hourly value in commercial or government settings. We
>>> are asking such hams and non-hams to contribute to our projects on a
>>> volunteer basis. We don't expect them to have to bring or buy their own
>>> software tool licenses, test equipment, $3000 eval boards, or $2000 chips.
>>> We want their skills - not their stuff. For these projects to succeed we
>>> will find ways to supply the stuff - and the volunteers will supply the
>>> much higher value engineering labor. Whatever investments we make in tools
>>> will be those that are highly leveraged.
>>>
>>> 4. You wouldn't make your own hammer, or drill, or CNC machine -
>>> although you could with open source designs. It might be fun to do that -
>>> but it would be a diversion taking you away from the current mission. If
>>> you can get a carpenter to build something for free labor - you wouldn't
>>> ask him to make his own tools - just because he can. We won't build our own
>>> spectrum analyzers or oscilloscopes - although we could. We focus on our
>>> project and we will beg, borrow, steal, or buy if necessary the tools and
>>> test equipment to complete the jobs we are doing.
>>>
>>> 5. With regard to PC tools, the opinions that matter are those of the
>>> people who will be doing the critical work and what they need to perform
>>> their job. What tools are used for a simple pi-shield don't matter much.
>>> What tool is used to produce a 12 layer FPGA board with 5 DDR4's and a
>>> dozen transceiver lanes may matter much - especially to the person doing
>>> the work and the downstream fab, smt, and test processes. Over the past few
>>> decades or so the roles of pcb layout specialist and draftsman have all but
>>> disappeared. Mechanical engineers themselves are married to solidworks, or
>>> Catia, or whatever. EEs are married to Allegro, Altium, OrCad or some other
>>> multi kilobuck per seat tool - and in relatively rare cases some small
>>> companies may use Eagle Professional multi-seat versions - some still
>>> living in Version 7 and others having moved to Autocad Fusion. Mechanical
>>> and Electrical groups often need close collaboration which is the value
>>> that PCB/3dCAD integration brings to the table. Catia handled this well at
>>> the high end if you have megabucks. Fusion looks like it's workable for the
>>> low end. I've never known of any organization doing commercial or military
>>> work using KiCad. I suppose it's possible but it's usually a poor choice
>>> economically - like asking engineers to work at ping-pong tables sitting on
>>> folding chairs with CRT monitors. These are certainly cheap and plentiful.
>>> But productively comes from proper capitalization of workers - including
>>> programmers and engineers. Time is money. Volunteer time may have zero
>>> associated dollars but it has associated value that we do not wish to
>>> squander - especially when it comes to the most complex parts of our
>>> projects.
>>>
>>> 6. Our goals are to produce open source designs that anyone is free to
>>> adapt to their specific needs. Some parts may require specialized tools to
>>> use - we wish to minimize that, but non-free non-open source tools may
>>> sometimes be required to utilize the sources. We can limit IP and
>>> endeavor to avoid purchasing IP beyond that included with the standard
>>> tools. But I don't think we can afford not to use commercial tools when
>>> they are the best choice for completing a particular set of tasks. If we
>>> need Matlab to run a vendor's filter generation tools - so be it. If
>>> someone wants to take on converting this to Octave - please have at it. If
>>> you can modify it and prove it's valid we'll be happy to use it. Otherwise,
>>> we will just suck it up and use Matlab (beg'd, borrowed, stolen, or
>>> purchased).
>>>
>>> 7. Eagle has a long following - many have used it since Version 4 or
>>> early on Mac, Linux, and Windows. They captured a lot of users a decade ago
>>> with free versions for hobbyist use, free versions usable by board houses,
>>> and economic professional versions with auto-routing etc. It's a bit
>>> weird and quirky but generally extremely stable. I don't see any reasonable
>>> argument against using Eagle. Nor KiCad for those so inclined. But I am
>>> against mandating either the forced use of open tools or particular tools.
>>> As projects involving PC boards proceed - consensus will likely appear as
>>> to what is appropriate for the task at hand.
>>>
>>> 8. While we are on the subject, PCB layout has some esoteric black art
>>> skills - especially for RF - but a very major part of the work
>>> load involves preparing footprints, symbols, and 3d models for parts. While
>>> there are lots of parts in standard libraries there is a rule that says
>>> that many of the ones you want won't be there (unless you made them
>>> before). There is a lot of effort required to make parts correctly and to
>>> verify them. But this does not involve special skills - just a normal skill
>>> with the tool and the usual conventions (like what goes in what layers and
>>> what does not. There are tools that will generate parts from generic
>>> descriptions to the formats of popular cad tools - e.g. Ultra-librarian and
>>> Library Loader - but they are often less than ideal - particularly with
>>> complicated parts that should have multiple symbols in functional
>>> groupings, not  one big block with 900 pins. Element14 also added a lot of
>>> parts (thank you) to Eagle, but often with poor symbols. And a lot of stuff
>>> you'll download from the Internet is poor or outright wrong. If a part
>>> cannot be found, then considerable time will need to be devoted to building
>>> and verifying the part before the PCB layout can continue. Even if a part
>>> is found - is it correct? What design rules are implied? Frankly, this is
>>> the vast majority of all PCB design activities. So this is an area where
>>> many hands could potentially help by contributing. There will be ongoing
>>> needs to build parts, verify parts, and manage libraries of proven good
>>> parts. Have a look at the oresat project's Eagle libraries
>>> https://github.com/oresat/oresat-eagle-libraries. They seem to have a
>>> workable approach for their needs.
>>>
>>> 9. PCB design software is more than schematic capture and layout. It
>>> also involve simulation (e.g. Spice) and design rule verification. Over the
>>> last decade, integration with 3D mechanical tools has also become common.
>>> Those in the tool business must  continue to provide value to their
>>> customers. Autodesk bought Eagle to add to their other offerings. Their
>>> Fusion product is now pretty usable and economical at the low end and
>>> integrates with their 3D.  They continue to offer free eagle versions but
>>> their main offering is now their $60/month Fusion product. Several in this
>>> group use these tools professionally and they are good value for money. The
>>> Autodesk model is pretty workable as the tools are licensed per named
>>> individual but they can be purchased month to month (or longer). So they
>>> are a good match to specific board projects. Part work can always be done
>>> with the free versions or the very stable version 7. When we are designing
>>> and building complex boards with $2000 parts a few months of Fusion for a
>>> couple of people is in the noise. They are a wise use of funding -
>>> especially when they leverage what would otherwise be tens of thousands of
>>> dollars of engineering labor.
>>>
>>> 10. So I think that the original question that started this thread
>>> should probably be rephrased as:
>>>
>>> A. Who has available time and willingness in the coming months (and
>>> reasonable skill) for building parts in X, or Y, or X and Z including
>>> Footprints, Symbols (not just big squares), and 3D models and/or verifying
>>> same keeping in mind that it's usually best for building and verifying to
>>> be done by different persons. What tools would be needed to take advantage
>>> of those skills.
>>>
>>> 11. As to the complex boards, I think that is going to be case by case
>>> as design/layout/design rules etc are pretty much engineered together and
>>> difficult to partition within a single board. Generally, the board
>>> designer(s) will be using the tools. I'm sure expert advice on best
>>> practices for any tool will always be encouraged and well received.
>>>
>>> 12. As a final note, Eagle/Fusion 360 in  the latest versions have a
>>> feature called "Design Blocks" which allow grouping of components and
>>> traces to be made and treated as one (other tools also have this but it has
>>> been notably awkward to do this with Eagle in the past). This adds another
>>> layer of library-like work. It's especially useful for things like
>>> switching power supplies and audio circuits where grounding and routing
>>> issues are critical. It's valuable to have drop in blocks for such things
>>> that have been proven all the way to hardware verification (including EMC).
>>> Generally using these and the 3D fetures requires Fusion as well a Fusion
>>> user in the Organization that hosts the resources. So there might need to
>>> be at least one more or less permanent fusion subscription by the
>>> organization in addition to whatever month to month subscriptions are
>>> required by those that are not already fusion subscribers.
>>>
>>> As usual - this is only my $0.02 - your mileage may vary - use at your
>>> own risk.
>>>
>>> WU1Y
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 3:51 PM Bruce Perens via Ground-Station
>>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 9:32 AM Robert McGwier via Ground-Station
>>>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I wish to say that the issue of which tool to be used should not be
>>>>> dependent on cost or personal ability to pay.  Don't ask me more than that,
>>>>> but you are entitled to guess all you want.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This is just fine if you are making a decision on behalf of your
>>>> university, Federated Wireless, or Hawkeye 360.
>>>>
>>>> We are Amateurs.
>>>>
>>>> It is a given that we would be using these tools in a personal capacity
>>>> to build experience and achieve our own projects. And then using them in a
>>>> broader role. Thus, a tool which is in our reach financially is indeed
>>>> important.
>>>>
>>>> We also wish to teach with our tools. *Formal* education is not a
>>>> mission of ORI because of the need to be licensed and accredited, and the
>>>> fact that this would have delayed our initial 501(c)3 acceptance. But we
>>>> still wish to teach through example, through the opportunity to
>>>> participate, and all of the things we create.
>>>>
>>>> When we first got money, we used it to license proprietary software.
>>>> This is ironic. It's certainly less than optimal, and we should be using
>>>> Open Source if at all possible. Decisions to license proprietary products
>>>> should never be made lightly.
>>>>
>>>>     Thanks
>>>>
>>>>     Bruce
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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