Hi all.
Just wondering what tools you use for schematic and PCB layout design?
Obviously we would love you all to use Upverter but we are trying to understand what features are the most valuable, and if you have any suggestions about potential features that would make your life easier we would love to chat!
Thanks
Alex
Nope.
A real question!
Beagle!
… no, wait. Eagle!
Went to try out the editor and got the below (Chrome)
Oh, so it was spam.
That’s weird. Let me look into this I will check the logs and come back to you soon.
Spam?
@ Upverter - Can you please tell what are the benefits of using Upverter versus Eagle?
Tried the explore library option and got the below.
I would like a simplified editor … Eagle seems overwhelming to me. The tutorials have soo many steps for what seems to be a simple process.
I was going to trying the Fritzing option one of these days.
I think the most important difference between Eagle and us is the collaboration features. We allow teams to work on the same project in real time and sync changes as they happen. That solves a lot of versioning issues as you always work on the latest version of the files.
And sharing the resources is a great thing. Being able to fork someone else’s design and use it as a starting point for your own work is highly valuable. Asking for a public design review and simulating the designs before prototyping as well. There is a lot of things we are good at, and many things we do better than other editors.
Not to mention the crowd-sourced parts library, the parts editor etc…
To be fair, I think there are two things we don’t do as well as Eagle does right now. Follow me routing and auto-routing.
@ Upverter - Thanks. So taking collaboration and sharing part out there are no real advantages. Correct?
@ andre.m - We hear that a lot, and I think this is not specific to cloud-based CAD software (some people don’t use Google Docs or DropBox for that reason). But if you can import/create a file and then export it at any time, do you think you lose control of your files at any moment?
I think the concern would be that any export is then “usable” elsewhere, so being able to then import it easily into Eagle (for example) and then not have to rework it. Showing how that could happen would remove the concern in most cases, I suspect.
@ Upverter - I’ve looked at your software several times over the past year but I’ve yet to actually do anything serious with it. It looks nice but in my limited use of it, I found several UI glitches that made me feel that it wasn’t ready for prime time.
My biggest hesitation to use it, though, is that I have a free tool, Eagle, that already does everything I want and is fairly stable to use. I can’t yet talk myself into paying $7/month to replace something I have for free right now.
I just took a quick browse into your site again to try and figure out how I would export the CAM files for producing a PCB. I couldn’t find that feature. In fact, it appears that PCBs can only be ordered through your service. Is that correct??? If so, then the software should be free and you should be making all your money off the PCB service. Not being able to export my files to order PCBs from the manufacturer of my choice makes this product a non-starter for me.
@ ianlee74 - Hey. Enzo from Upverter here. Three things to answer your previous post:
You can use Upverter for free. As long as you are willing to open source your designs the tool does not even cost you 7$ a month.
You do not necessarily need to use our platform to prototype / manufacture your designs. You can export your Gerber files at any time or convert your design files to any other proprietary format using our open source converter.
→ https://github.com/upverter/schematic-file-converter
You can (OF COURSE!!) order your PCBs from the manufacturer of your choice. It is your work, not ours!
@ andre.m We do not store your credit card data on our website. The only information regarding your payment details that we keep is a Beanstream customer reference identification number.
I guess you made a point, we will definitely think about implementing Paypal as a payment method and to be fair we never really spent time on that matter so far.
I use Altium Designer but I don’t use any of the cloud features other than the occasion use of the vault to find some devices. Even then I diligently check them before I use them.
If you read the Altium forums you will see a less than satisfactory response to the idea of using the cloud. People don’t like to put their data outside the company. I too am of that opinion. I want control and know who has access to the files.
I am also not a fan of any of web based solutions. What if you don’t have internet access or a slow connection.
That looks like a great tool. Why don’t you integrate it into your site? I want to use tools that are interested in making my job easier. Having to go download & compile that tool seems to be intentionally burdensome.
Thanks! I’ll keep watching this product. I have high hopes for it. I especially like the idea of being able to embed the schematics directly into my websites.
Hi Dave.
As a matter of fact if you don’t have internet access you can’t use our tool. We believe in the collaborative power of the cloud and this is our DNA. We also think that not having to install a piece of software on your desktop makes it easier in terms of mobility. We have been focusing on making your work available at any time, anywhere. And pushing javascript to its limits to make an editor that could run natively in the browser has been a real challenge!
The “control concern” is something that we understand. Indeed, any cloud based solution in any kind of business has to face it. But private designs are… private! And no one has access to your work unless you explicitly request help from one of our engineers.
@ ianlee74 - [quote]Having to go download & compile that tool seems to be intentionally burdensome.[/quote]
We have open sourced it so far to make sure that anyone could convert their files into the format they wish. We will support more format for import and export in a near future.
Integrating the converter directly into the editor will definitely happen at some point. We are still a young company and we are dedicating our current efforts to a few key things among which improving UI and UX as mentioned earlier and releasing the most gigantic and most documented parts library out there. This is a huge amount of work but we will get there!