Eagle vs Protel

[Wilhelm Lehmann]

Hi,

I am up to the point where I must now purchase my PCB software because the
complexity of the boards exceed the capabilities of Eagle Lite. (ie can only
do double sided boards of limited size)

I see there are a few posts about Protel, and I was wondering if I can have
some coments about the two. As to what I should invest in. (keeping in mind
I know eagle quite well)

For starters Eagle don't have auto placement of components, but the auto
router works great.

Rgs

Wilhelm

 

[John Larkin]

Hi,

I am up to the point where I must now purchase my PCB software because the
complexity of the boards exceed the capabilities of Eagle Lite. (ie can only
do double sided boards of limited size)

I see there are a few posts about Protel, and I was wondering if I can have
some coments about the two. As to what I should invest in. (keeping in mind
I know eagle quite well)

For starters Eagle don't have auto placement of components, but the auto
router works great.

Auto placement is unnecessary, and doesn't work well even in high-end
versions, and makes ugly boards. People are better at this. Hell,
people are better at routing.

John

 

[Bob Stephens]

Auto placement is unnecessary, and doesn't work well even in high-end
versions, and makes ugly boards. People are better at this. Hell,
people are better at routing.

John

I agree. I can't comment on the high end stuff, but AutoPlacement in Protel
is worse than useless.


Bob

 

[John Larkin]

I agree. I can't comment on the high end stuff, but AutoPlacement in Protel
is worse than useless.

If you use a bunch of FPGAs or RAMs, placement interacts with pin
assignments and bussing strategies, and that's iterative. Then there
are thermal/ground loop/isolation/pour/bypassing/impedance and lots of
other issues. Software isn't any good at this. Besides, this part is
fun.

We don't autoplace or autoroute anything, and I bet we come out ahead.
The boards look better for sure.

John

 

[Peter Bennett]

Hi,

I am up to the point where I must now purchase my PCB software because the
complexity of the boards exceed the capabilities of Eagle Lite. (ie can only
do double sided boards of limited size)

I see there are a few posts about Protel, and I was wondering if I can have
some coments about the two. As to what I should invest in. (keeping in mind
I know eagle quite well)

For starters Eagle don't have auto placement of components, but the auto
router works great.

The Auto-placement "feature" was invented by the marketing department,
and is not really useful in most (all?) PCB programs. I may have
tried Protel's autoplacement once or twice, just for laughs, but have
never used it for real work.

I haven't used Eagle myself, but would suggest that if another version
of Eagle will do what you need, you should probably stick to that
product line, to make use of your experience with Eagle Lite (assuming
that user interface, file formats, etc. are consistent through the
product line).

I'm a long-time Protel user, but haven't upgraded to the latest
version - 99SE is still adequate for my work.


--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
new newsgroup users info : http://vancouver-webpages.com/nnq
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca

 

[maxfoo]

Hi,

I am up to the point where I must now purchase my PCB software because the
complexity of the boards exceed the capabilities of Eagle Lite. (ie can only
do double sided boards of limited size)

I see there are a few posts about Protel, and I was wondering if I can have
some coments about the two. As to what I should invest in. (keeping in mind
I know eagle quite well)

For starters Eagle don't have auto placement of components, but the auto
router works great.

Rgs

Wilhelm

I've been using Eagle lite freeware version for home projects for 5 years now,
(at work we use Orcad), If you can get through Eagle's quirkiness its not bad.
Heck go for it and send me a copy

 

[Sylvain Munaut]

If you use a bunch of FPGAs or RAMs, placement interacts with pin
assignments and bussing strategies, and that's iterative. Then there
are thermal/ground loop/isolation/pour/bypassing/impedance and lots of
other issues. Software isn't any good at this. Besides, this part is
fun.

Fun ?
Well, not always

But I completly agrees. Autoplacement is useless. If you did the
schematics or at least have a good overview of what you're doing you
should probably have a good view at how to dispose stuff correctly.
I don't like autorouting either because I never really "like" what it
produces, I just route everything by hand.


I never used protel but I use eagle for some times now and I like it. It
has some limitations but with some scripts to help, you can do some nice
stuff.

I'd say that if you uses eagle and you don't have major problems with
it, keep it. Learning a new tool in depth can take sometime. And eagle
is available for Win32/Linux x86/MacOS X


Sylvain

 

[James Morrison]

Hi,

I am up to the point where I must now purchase my PCB software because the
complexity of the boards exceed the capabilities of Eagle Lite. (ie can only
do double sided boards of limited size)

Wilhelm, I have purchased a full-blown license of Eagle and have never
regretted it.

I see there are a few posts about Protel, and I was wondering if I can have
some coments about the two. As to what I should invest in. (keeping in mind
I know eagle quite well)

I have also used Protel for one specific customer and it has about the
same learning curve as Eagle does. You have to learn different things
but there is a learning curve. I'm not a huge Protel user but what I
have heard from others is that Protel constantly gets to a version that
is just usable with lots of outstanding bugs and then the next version
comes out that is not usuable due to a huge number of bugs. It just
gets fixed to the point where its just usable and then a new one comes
out.

For starters Eagle don't have auto placement of components, but the auto
router works great.

I have never used auto-placement in previous places even when it was
available. If you're happy with the auto-router and its performance
then stick with Eagle. In my opinion its by far the best value for your
money. I've used Protel, Orcad, CadStar, ViewLogic (or whatever they
are called today), ...

Cheers,

James.

 

[Bo]

Protel99SE wins hands-down. I've used both. Admittedly, Protel more--but
Eagle has some features that I loathe. Like hard linking schematic to board.
Yeah it's theoretically the right thing to do--but if something becomes
amiss between the two files, you're sscrewed....

My $0.02 worth....

Don't know about later Protel versions. Understand they've gotten
ridiculously $$$$....
So budget may be your primary concern.

Bo

 

[Roger Lascelles]

....
I have also used Protel for one specific customer and it has about the
same learning curve as Eagle does. You have to learn different things
but there is a learning curve. I'm not a huge Protel user but what I
have heard from others is that Protel constantly gets to a version that
is just usable with lots of outstanding bugs and then the next version
comes out that is not usuable due to a huge number of bugs. It just
gets fixed to the point where its just usable and then a new one comes
out.

My experience too - Protel is a tricky beast - you adapt to it, not vice
versa. So if you have put in the hours to learn the Eagle quirks, stick to
Eagle.

Roger Lascelles

 

[Ban]

Hi,

I am up to the point where I must now purchase my PCB software
because the complexity of the boards exceed the capabilities of Eagle
Lite. (ie can only do double sided boards of limited size)

I see there are a few posts about Protel, and I was wondering if I
can have some coments about the two. As to what I should invest in.
(keeping in mind I know eagle quite well)

For starters Eagle don't have auto placement of components, but the
auto router works great.

Wilhelm, a non commercial medium version of Eagle costs 150Euro.
Protel costs 9995$. Did you know that?

 

[The Real Andy]

Wilhelm, a non commercial medium version of Eagle costs 150Euro.
Protel costs 9995$. Did you know that?

You get what you pay for. Look at the industry:
Small - Eagle (hobby ???)
Medium - Protel
Large - Cadence

 

[Wilhelm Lehmann]

Thanks guys,

I think eagle is then the way to go, and since I know it quite well and are
very happy with it, it makes the choice just so much easier.

I never used an autoplacement, and based on the comments, I can't justify
the higher expense and learning curve of Protel.

Eagle served me well, and works even on my small Linux box ....

Regards

Wilhelm

 

[Pieter Kruger]

Used Eagle more than Protel98, but.... Don't like Protel at all, user
interface
is crap compared to Eagle.

 

[[email protected]]

As everyone else has pointed out, autoplacement blows. I've never seen
a situation where it produces useful results. That said, the feature is
there for a reason and I suppose someone out there has a use for it.

Protel is a very good package and is no more or less clunky than any
other PCB layout software. The UI is a bit more modern than its
competitors and I found the learning curve to be a bit easier than
Orcad and other packages.

However, Eagle is cheap. A license of Protel is something like an order
of magnitude more than Eagle.

Something else to consider is that Protel and Orcad are pretty much the
industry standard tools, depending on which part of the world you do
business in. Unless you design motherboards or complex microwave stuff,
one of those two packages is likely to be your tool of choice.

Chris

 

[Joerg]

Hello Ban,

Wilhelm, a non commercial medium version of Eagle costs 150Euro.

If Wilhelm wants to use it commercially it'll be $798 if you only buy
schematic and layout and not the autorouter. I don't know the Euro
prices. The autorouter is $399 in the US. That would be the professional
edition, 16 signal layers, boards almost up to the size of a mattress,
the works.

Protel costs 9995$. Did you know that?

Ouch!

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

Hello Andy,

You get what you pay for. Look at the industry:
Small - Eagle (hobby ???)
Medium - Protel
Large - Cadence

Err, not necessarily. Almost all my clients use OrCad, small, medium and
large companies. I switched to Eagle when they started jacking up the
prices. Except for the lack of hierarchical design I didn't find
anything I'd miss from my OrCad days. Oh, and what bugs me a little is
that Eagle uses "cut" where every other program says "copy". But that's
a minor inconvenience, like having to drive in lefthand traffic.

I haven't seen Protel in a long time. Cadence I saw only once and that
was a company that designs mostly CMOS chips, not boards.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

Hello Chris,

Something else to consider is that Protel and Orcad are pretty much the
industry standard tools, depending on which part of the world you do
business in. Unless you design motherboards or complex microwave stuff,
one of those two packages is likely to be your tool of choice.

In the western US I would think the de facto standard is OrCad. If
Cadsoft would advertise more they could capture more market share.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

I haven't seen Protel in a long time. Cadence I saw only once and that
was a company that designs mostly CMOS chips, not boards.

Orcad is owned by Cadence now.

 

[keith]

If you use a bunch of FPGAs or RAMs, placement interacts with pin
assignments and bussing strategies, and that's iterative. Then there
are thermal/ground loop/isolation/pour/bypassing/impedance and lots of
other issues. Software isn't any good at this. Besides, this part is
fun.

At least the high end FPGAs have lotsa routing resources these days.
Designing the FPGA to make the board simple is the best way to at least
start. If the FPGA gets strangled then push IOs around.

We don't autoplace or autoroute anything, and I bet we come out ahead.
The boards look better for sure.

You haven't done complicated enough boards. ;-) I've seen many that
couldn't be hand routed with 10x the personel. Boards measuring in the
high-digit square feet, with fifty to a hundred layers, all packed to the
gills. Only overflows (perhaps hundreds to thousands) were hand routed.
Many of those overflows were done with surface wiring (twisted pair).

Chips aren't hand routed these days either, except when there is no other
way to meet timing (BTDT-GTS). Do you hand place-n-route your FPGAs?
Boards have been known to be just as complicated.