[techhelpbb]

Oliver worked on a PCB (CAN terminator for FIRST CAN) with me using Altrium via the FIRST license and produced a 3D rendering of it. I took the Gerber outputs and NC drill files and produced circuit boards on my LPKF Protomat 92S circuit board systems then hand soldered some surface mount parts to them.

So the programs work great and produce the professional outputs required as industry standard to make printed circuits boards at professional shop.

The files can be exported to other CAD and EDA systems. I am pretty sure I exported to DXF. Of course if you just want to make more boards you can just use the Gerber and NC files you already have. Plus the net lists should still be valid.

I've made 6 layers boards with thousands of parts. Autorouters are great tools but they don't handle RF problems and they surely are not necessary with simple designs. You can lay out a simple board with a Sharpie marker on the copper clad itself and get everything you need for a simple PCB from RadioShack in a kit.

Learning how to use an EDA package is a valuable skill but it's not the only choice to do the job you could draw the image in Microsoft Paint (bitmap) or InkScape (vector and also free) and get the basic image you need (but the NC drill files would be your problem to make).

I have noticed that quite a few people don't seem to realize that Altrium is offering to let FIRST teams use their very expensive tools for basically free. It's a great opportunity to learn how to do this with a professional tool for the this function.