There are many CAD developed to assist the electronic designers during drawing of PCBs and schematics; often they are integrated in complete suite to project, simulate and realize a whole electronic system. Besides the many commercial versions, there are also free CADs available. Today we’d like to analyze one of the most diffused and known software: Eaglecad (eagle does not mean the powerful bird but it is the acronym of Easily Applicable Graphical Layout Editor) made by Cadsoft, actually at version6.2.0. We have chosen this one because, as you know as an Arduino’s fan, the official pcbs and schematic files of the boards are developed and available free of charge to everybody in Eaglecad format; you can find also a lot of libraries and circuits made by famous DIY website (Sparkfun for first) available for free. Eaglecad is a professional software that have gained a lot of popularity due to the Arduino’s success. One of the most important difference between Eaglecad and its competitors is the availability of a version for every of the most common desktop OS: Windows, Linux, Mac. We have to specify that Eaglecad is not Free software but is a commercial one, which can be used in the free version (eaglecad light) only for evaluation purposes and by student but you can’t use the light version in any case when you earn or save money by using it. For further details about licenses and distributors have a look to the official Eaglecad website where you can find all the information you need. Remember that the light version has some limitations; anyway you can design circuit with a discrete complexity, as the one you can see athttp://elmicro.com/en/kit12.html. The limitations are:
- pcb dimensions not bigger than 100×80 mm;
- no more than 2 layers;
- only 1 sheet for schematic.
http://www.open-electronics.org/how-to-make-an-arduino-shield-with-eagle-cad-tutorial
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