A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

Llama · 2014-12-02 15:48:45

Hi,

Is there an open source CAD app especially good at making circuitry for civil and industrial buildings?

ackt1c · 2014-12-02 15:51:41

Specific

Last edited by ackt1c (2022-11-05 13:14:26)

Llama · 2014-12-02 16:43:38

FreeCAD and LibreCAD both have little or nothing to do with electric circuitry, or so I gather. There's no need of modelling buildings themselves.

ackt1c · 2014-12-02 16:48:12

Sew

Last edited by ackt1c (2022-11-05 13:22:45)

whompus · 2014-12-02 17:59:48

Qcad which is available as a free (in the community repo) or paid for version has some free libraries that may of some use. http://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/qcad-add-ons

konfusius · 2014-12-03 00:12:56

There's a lot to explore here and here. Just a simple search for "electric" or "circuit" in the repos and aur.

desaparecido · 2014-12-03 12:07:37

Hi, is not a CAD software but you can make electrical diagrams and you have a lot of symbols and you can create it too in easy way Qelectrotech.
You can find it in AUR repo in differents versions (stable, trunk).

mreff555 · 2015-02-22 18:06:36

Hey, I know this post is slightly dated but if you are still looking for a decent cad program try Draftsight. It's made by the same company that created SOLIDWORKS. It's free and has a fairly strong community, However, its closed source. It's basic 2D CAD, with no special features geared toward electrical/chemical/architecture, but if you are accustomed to AutoCAD, there is virtually no learning curve. Fairly stable as well.

QCAD is an option as well, but it's format is not 100% compatible with standard dwgs, so it's not totally portable.

sl1pkn07 · 2015-02-22 19:05:51

qelectrotech, kicad

Last edited by sl1pkn07 (2015-02-22 19:09:41)

Llama · 2015-02-23 17:08:24

Thanks!

timofonic · 2015-02-24 13:29:41

Llama wrote:

Hi,
Is there an open source CAD app especially good at making circuitry for civil and industrial buildings?

What kind of circuits?

KiCad is an open source software suite for electronic design automation (EDA). It facilitates the design of schematics for electronic circuits and their conversion to PCBs (printed circuit board) design. KiCad was developed by Jean-Pierre Charras, and features an integrated environment for schematic capture and PCB layout design. Tools exist within the package to create a bill of materials, artwork and Gerber files, and 3D views of the PCB and its components.

www.kicad-pcb.org

Advantages
* CERN is helping heavily in the project.
* User friendly is improved, specially due to CERN usability concerns.
* CERN developers are looking about interoperability and forming a common file format between other Open Source EDA software.
* You can preview your boards in 3D.
* It has a very active community doing new symbols or fixing them.

Disadvantages
* User friendly needs to be improved heavily, finding components in libraries is a pain in the ass.
* Not enough import-export possibilities to compete in a extreme closed source and vendor lock-in world. There are giants in the EDA software that get tons of money by just selling file converters.
* The project website is crappy, unable to see the progress in a proper blog-like news section.

The term gEDA refers to two things:
1. A set of software applications (CAD tools) used for electronic design released under the GPL. As such, gEDA is an ECAD (electronic CAD) or EDA (electronic design automation) application suite. gEDA is mostly oriented towards printed circuit board design (as opposed to integrated circuit design). The gEDA applications are often referred to collectively as "the gEDA Suite".
2. The collaborative of free software/open-source developers who work to develop and maintain the gEDA toolkit. The developers communicate via gEDA mailing lists, and have participated in the annual "Google Summer of Code" event as a single project. This collaborative is often referred to as "the gEDA Project".
The word "gEDA" is a conjunction of "GPL" and "EDA". The names of some of the individual tools in the gEDA Suite are prefixed with the letter "g" to emphasize that they are released under the GNU General Public License.

http://www.geda-project.org

Advantages
* It's one of the more mature projects.
* It has a very active community.
* You can preview your boards in 3D too.

Disadvantages
* User friendly needs to be improved heavily, finding components in libraries is a pain in the ass.
* Not enough import-export possibilities to compete in a extreme closed source and vendor lock-in world. There are giants in the EDA software that get tons of money by just selling file converters.
* User interface is so early 90s, even worse than KiCad.
* You must load each component when opening a project, not embedding in the project file. This not happens on propietary EDA software such as Eagle or Altium.
* The project website is crappy, unable to see the progress in a proper blog-like news section.

Conclussion:

- You can try both and see what one do you like more, but EDA software needs to mature to compete with their propietary equivalents in a minimal way.
- Despite KiCad is less mature in certain way, CERN is making the progress to skyrocket and they want to make it a modern application by all means.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-02 15:48:45

A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#2 2014-12-02 15:51:41

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#3 2014-12-02 16:43:38

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#4 2014-12-02 16:48:12

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#5 2014-12-02 17:59:48

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#6 2014-12-03 00:12:56

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#7 2014-12-03 12:07:37

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#8 2015-02-22 18:06:36

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#9 2015-02-22 19:05:51

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#10 2015-02-23 17:08:24

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

#11 2015-02-24 13:29:41

Re: A CAD application best suited for power electric circuitry

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