Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Poll

Give away a 1 year Eagle license?

No, it's a trap! It'll lock you of your own work!
[ 9 ] (60%)
Yes, it might really help a group or project!
[ 6 ] (40%)

Total Members Voted: 15

Voting closed: November 12, 2011, 03:51:19 pm

Topic: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide. (Read 25076 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #60 –
Some appeared to mention multiple schematic sheets, which isn't a necessity , necessarily (you can always use a larger single sheet) but is certainly nice to have.

Honestly, I didn't read through all of the posts. Although some of the multi-layer stuff might be worth considering.


[quote author="arhi"]6 layers - well, hobby is 2 layers, if you can afford to make 6 layer pcb, you can afford to purchase licence[/quote]
I see where you're coming from here.  Although, if I were to have a project that required multiple layers and I also had to retool my CAD to do it, I'd probably be more likely to move forward if I got the CAD portion for free, then I'd had more of the budget to put towards the PCB and parts. 

I've done several projects that appear to be more expensive than they are, but since I was able to scavenge some of the parts, it took the total cost down to something that was "reasonable" (i.e. high enough wife acceptance factor (W.A.F)) ;-)

Although seemingly silly to some, a project with a total cost of $400 might never get accomplished, but take it down to $300 and it now might be within reach.

Some other types of projects that would greatly benefit from the hobby license would be anything with sensitive analog signals (not sure that there were too many (or any) of those on the blog), where routing is tight and a true ground plane is required.

[quote author="anton.todorov"]but if it uses only 2 rows of balls at the edges of BGA it is possible with 2 layer design but 4 layer is better IMO.[/quote]
I could certainly see this.

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #61 –
[quote author="arhi"]That's the usual difference between participans and users ... 90% of those "gimme gimme" would not ever shared any pcb they created with that Eagle, not to mention that at least 30% of those would not even start Eagle more then 2-3 times total ..

Also, I don't see a single project there that requires this licence... as what licence gives you
 - 6 layers - well, hobby is 2 layers, if you can afford to make 6 layer pcb, you can afford to purchase licence
 - autorouter - autorouter in eagle is not worth mentioning + there is a free router that works with eagle (and works better then eagle's autorouter) so again irrelevant for hobby
 - 100x160 - this is the only thing that this licence brings that is relevant for this discussion, and I didn't see any project on the blog comments that makes sense that requires this board size.

I really expected to see some interesting projects there ... I was very very disappointed with what I seen (as you could read from mine comment there)[/quote]

You forget the multi page schematic feature. You can paste every thing on 1 page (with some separation like a normal document borders) but multiple pages seems a bit easier to read. I usually draw it in my head so for me it doesn't matter.

The few projects that justify a larger board are some of the nixie projects that are in the comments. I personally have some ideas that would benefit from a larger and multilayer board but I'm sorta part of DP which would put me and DP in a conflict situation.

Edit: Besides that i think i need a commercial license in the near feature..

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #62 –
[quote author="bearmos"]Some appeared to mention multiple schematic sheets, which isn't a necessity , necessarily (you can always use a larger single sheet) but is certainly nice to have.[/quote]
Nothing it the blog post mentions that any of the features of the Hobbyist licence has to be "necesary" for the completion of the proyect, but it mentions that it should "benefit" from it.

[quote author="bearmos"]
Honestly, I didn't read through all of the posts. Although some of the multi-layer stuff might be worth considering.
[/quote]
Honestly, on this giveaway (just like on most DP giveaways) I have seen lots of complicated proyect proposals that I bet will never come to life, I would even doubt most have the skills required. I fear it somehow becomes a "who comes up with the most ridiculously complicated proyect" contest.

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #63 –
Well, I have one current design that doesn't fit on the 100x80(or 100x100) size of eagle light.
It's a basically a power supply unit. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3154
Still I have to add few parts, but already the board size exhausted.
Quote
- 100x160 - this is the only thing that this licence brings that is relevant for this discussion, and I didn't see any project on the blog comments that makes sense that requires this board size.
Well, this is only what I need. But not the other things.
Still learning
-Arup

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #64 –
Re: need vs want schematic sheets: in terms of getting a board designed, fabbed and stuffed, you're right, you just don't need multiple sheets. However, I HAVE encountered situations where, for the sake of design documentation, multiple sheets are the difference between a schematic you can send in PDF and expect a reviewer to understand, vs a design that is functionally impossible to read. The best you could hope for is to split your schematic up on the one sheet such that it prints out just right spread across multiple pages (of paper or of a PDF), and that's near impossible to get good results from.

I know it's not very typical for hobbyists, but among engineering student groups where I send most of my time, we always try to get peers and professors to review designs both as a best practice to carry over into our later careers and as learning opportunities.

Re: Possible Eagle license giveaway? You decide.

Reply #65 –
[quote author="bearmos"]Some appeared to mention multiple schematic sheets, which isn't a necessity , necessarily (you can always use a larger single sheet) but is certainly nice to have.[/quote]
This need vs. want comment was worded in a way that was responding to an earlier comment made.  I certainly agree that multi-paged schematics are really nice to have (I create and use them regularly).  Heck, I'll go as far as to say they are a requirement on any larger sized project, as much as functions are a requirement for readable code!

I also realize that there was nothing in the guidelines that stated a project/person had to have some hard requirement for the additions that the hobbyist license provided.  Again, there was a lot of wording in there that was responding to an earlier comment ahri had posted, I just hadn't quoted it (I didn't think that many people would be reading it, honestly). 

At any rate, I hope the licenses are put to good use and look forward to reading/seeing the projects created with them!  I was really nice of Cadsoft to provide DP with the alternative licenses they did.
 

( ! ) Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Elk_Exception' with message 'Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator.' in /var/www/dangerousprototypes/forum/sources/database/Db-mysql.class.php on line 696
( ! ) Elk_Exception: Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator. in /var/www/dangerousprototypes/forum/sources/database/Db-mysql.class.php on line 696
Call Stack
#TimeMemoryFunctionLocation
10.02112661752session_write_close ( )...(null):0
20.02142793304ElkArte\sources\subs\SessionHandler\DatabaseHandler->write( )...(null):0
30.02142794080Database_MySQL->query( ).../DatabaseHandler.php:119
40.06472932776Database_MySQL->error( ).../Db-mysql.class.php:273