While there are a number of free programs available on the Internet, only a few are actually worth usingIf you Google “design software for printed circuit boards”, you’ll get close to 2 million hits. This can be a bit overwhelming for a design engineer, no matter if he / she is in the early stages of a career, or already established within a company. So, how does one go about making sense of all these options? The best bet is to start out with free programs — to figure out what best suits an engineer’s needs first, as opposed to blindly investing in a platform that claims to be the best. There are several things to consider when investigating PCB design software. Pneumatic Circuit Design Free SoftwareAmong some of the more important criteria: Intuitiveness — The program should have an easy-to-navigate user interface, and be simple to learn. A design engineer should not need to spend hours reading through a manual on how to use the program, nor should time be spent looking for the components library, design tools, et al. Useful features — A lot of programs offer every design feature under the sun, but is this really useful? CircuitMaker is not just a free EDA software tool from Altium, it’s also a community of creative people and design content, working together to invent circuits and electronics products for a better future. To be honest, not really. Determine the project’s needs up front and find a program that best services it. A feature-heavy program can lag a bit with too many apps to load each time it’s launched. Well-established — Limit risks associated with unknown / new design software programs, and go with a platform that’s been around and vetted by industry veterans. New platforms are launched and closed down every day – no project is worth the risk associated with an unknown. Robust library — Large components libraries are extremely important to PCB designers because creating a ton of new components can lead to errors that won’t be captured by the program’s verification tools. The bigger the library, the less chance of error; this, in turn, leads to the program being more reliable for the design engineer. Now, before we get into the five best and free PCB design programs, it is worth noting that this type of platform is a bit limited when compared to its paid-for brethren. It basically allows the engineer to test the service out before moving on to the paid-for versions, with the latter allowing for the more complicated design work necessary for product finalization. So, with that disclaimer out of the way, the following are widely considered the best free PCB design software platforms, listed in alphabetical order: DesignSpark PCB is one of the world’s most popular and easily accessible electronics design software platforms. And for good reason — the program is easy-to-use and learn.
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