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From: gkishida@ (Gregg Kishida)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: ORCAD, WINTEK, TANGO etc. Which Is Best?
Keywords: PCB Design/layout Software
Message-ID: <2786F3B6.12747@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Date: 6 Jan 91 09:53:58 GMT
References: <20030@netcom.UUCP> <5646@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
Reply-To: Gregg Kishida <gkishida@Gregg Kishid>
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Lines: 62
Nntp-Posting-Host: sloth.eng.uci.edu

In article <5646@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes:
>>feustel@netcom.UUCP (David Feustel) writes:
>
>>I'm a rank novice getting ready to build a pcb board using a slightly
>>modified schematic of a circuit in the public domain. I want to
>>produce artwork that I can send to a PCB maker who will produce the
>>pc board for me in sample quantities. 
>>Thanks.
>
>The first question to ask is which brands does your board shop support.
>You do NOT want to send them artwork.  You want to send them the CAD file
>and let them plot it on their Gerber photoplotter and create their own
>drill tape.  

I definitely second this.  Most PCB houses want Gerber files so they can 
produce their own photoplots.  If you haven't dealt with a board maker,
talk to one of their engineers and ask him what they want and what they
can do (ie, # of layers, minimum track thicknesses, minimum spacing 
between adjacent tracks and pads, etc).  Also check what their minimum 
charge per board run is.  My company uses a PCB house which advertises
as a quick turn, low volume shop, but they have a minimum charge of $2K
per board run (I'll have a couple year's supply of our preamp boards - 
2" square, 2 layers).  Most houses charge by the number of through holes
as well as by size, and most like an even number of layers.  For complex 
designs, sometimes it may be cheaper to add an extra layer rather than
a group of vias.

>OrCad is kinda the industry leader and rightfully so.  

I used version 1.20 for a while.  Gave up quickly.  The reason was it should
have been labeled as a beta version, rather than a production version. 
There were still many bugs in the program (like not being able to plot the
board until I pulled up and replaced about 20 nets and not being able to 
create a power or ground plane - this from a program that is advertised as
being able to autoroute up to 16 layers ?!).  Don't get me wrong, I am not 
anti-Orcad, I haven't tried PCB-II, and I really like their schematic capture
program, but watch out when a company puts out a brand new product.

>Tango is also pretty good.  

I'm currently using Tango-PCB-II.  My company just updated from an earlier
version of the software, and it is almost completely different (this,
actually, is good.  The standard nickname for the earlier version was Tangle!)
They currently have about 4 versions of their PCB package out: PCB-II, 
PCB-II plus, and two different autorouters.  

>
>John
>


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