Going PCB ... where to start ?

[Tony Hardie-Bick]

On 04/06/13 09:32, Marc Nostromo [M-.-n] wrote:
> For the pcb, it's another story. I found this neat video explaining
> the basic concepts of using the free version of eagle but - beside the
> puzzling amount of resistor / capacitor choices - I quickly ran into
> the issue of not having a mcp4822 component for it and couldn't find
> any to pick off the web.
>
> Making my own component inside eagle as a first project doesn't seem
> like the easiest thing to start with and I'd like not to have cope
> with that.

I switched from Eagle to Kicad some years ago.

http://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/KiCad+EDA+Software+Suite

You have to use an online autorouter, which is a bit clunky from a UI point
of view, but you get top level professional results - flood region, 
unlimited
layers, the works. Also the main Kicad program supports hierarchical 
schematics,
which became an issue for me when designing more than 
one-filter-at-a-time ;)

Tony (HB)