Re: PCB drawing skills and software (RE: Self Resonant SSTC boards COMP LETE)

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Brian" <teslacoiler666-at-prodigy-dot-net> 

Thanks to all who responded.
Since Express PCB is free, it would be worth it for me to just play around
with it even if I am clueless.
Right now I am trying to vector board a solid state coil, and it's really
slow going. Its so much quicker to stuff a PCB!

Thanks!
Brian

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 9:32 AM
Subject: PCB drawing skills and software (RE: Self Resonant SSTC boards COMP
LETE)


 > Original poster: Marco.Denicolai-at-tellabs-dot-com
 >
 > Hi Brian,
 >
 > It depends on what your PCB is for. If you are working with high
 > currents (say > 10A) or steep transitions (read high frequencies) not
 > even the Mentor Graphics software we use at my work can help you. You
 > have to manually route critical traces and you have to know _yourself_
 > the proper way of doing it (minimize stray inductance, avoid ground
 > loops, etc.).
 >
 > Space (that is "clearance" in PCB dialect) and thickness ("width" in PCB
 > dialect) are easy to be managed by the PCB drawing software itself, even
 > if often you have to switch to manual mode and correct even those things
 > yourself.
 >
 > Moral: if you know what you are doing, even Eagle is fine. If you don't,
 > no software on the market will possibly save you. Sad but true.
 >
 > But...You can always read about these things, it's not black magic. And
 > experience makes the master (we got this motto in Finland).
 >
 > Best Regards
 >
 >  > Original poster: Brian Salvo <teslacoiler666-at-prodigy-dot-net>
 >  >
 >  > Hey, I got a dumb question!
 >  > Is there a way for me to design PCBs if I don't know how to
 >  > design PCBs???
 >  > Is there some kind of software out there that will do the
 >  > thinking for me
 >  > and spit out a PCB layout if I feed it a schematic? It would
 >  > have to be
 >  > intelligent enough to know how thick to make the traces for
 >  > the current,
 >  > and would have to know the voltages present to allow for
 >  > proper spacing I
 >  > assume.
 >
 >
 >