PCB Layout Tools – I am a KiCAD fan

From the postbag:

Was thinking about a project building front panels for various DIY synth projects out of PCB material and mounting all the control components (pots, switches) on the PCB itself like on the Lush (eliminating most of the point to point wiring). What PCB design package do you use and how difficult was it to learn?

Tom

Dear Tom,

As I’ve said elsewhere I hate point-to-point wiring so I made it a feature of LushOne to have all the components mounted on the board. I had previously used Eagle but the LushOne the board was too big for the low-cost edition. In any case, I like to use open source software when I can even though a lot of it is not that user-friendly. The LushOne was the 1^st project I laid out in KiCAD and I’ve actually found it a really effective design tool.

Like all CAD systems it has a bit of a learning curve, but generally I’ve found it easier to use than Eagle. It’s not as powerful as Eagle and lacks the scripting capabilities but it is perfectly adequate for my projects.

The worst part of KiCAD is the Gerber viewer. I tend to use the online Gerber viewers like the one at OSHPark.