Thread: PCB Projects with Altium Designer
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Unread 07-01-2014, 10:56
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FRC #3138 (Innovators Robotics)
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Re: PCB Projects with Altium Designer
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricWilliams View Post
Just a general poll/survey - have any teams embarked successfully on an FRC-sized PCB design project? If so, what did you work on? I'd like to expand the horizons of our electrical team beyond "wiring the robot" (with all due respect to the intricacies and challenges of really good layout/wiring). The Altium Designer donation seems too generous an offer to pass up.
I've contemplated it, but my biggest worry is using Altium to design a board, then have them not sponsor us in the future completely taking away our ability to change/modify or even open the Altium files. Well, that's my reasoning for not even learning Altium. I've started working with KiCAD because I know I'll never have to worry about licensing. Yes, KiCAD does not have all the bells and whistles that Altium Designer has, for FRC, we likely won't be needing all the bells and whistles. Something Altium Designer is good at is autorouting the fanning of large BGA packages (by the way, most people use auto-routing wrong). However, for FRC, I really don't see much need to use too many large BGA packages.