You can change fonts, pin numbers, and name placements, embed images, and show grids. Altium Designer and CircuitStudio make good-looking more flexible schematics. I replaced the tiny axial 3A fuse with a 20mm snap-in fuse.įigure 3 The initial goal in the reverse engineering was to create this schematic, so I can troubleshoot the broken PCB in my ultrasonic cleaner. I also took out all the unused pins my unit did not have a heater or timer. I did a double-sided board to replace the vertical copper heatsinks with copper pours on the board. There is a work-around for some things, but all the important features are in CircuitStudio.įigure 2 Here is the ultrasonic cleaner driver board I reverse-engineered in Altium CircuitStudio. No snippets, no flex design, no scripting. You can create a library, and cut-and-paste the schematic parts into it. They took out the bottom-right menu where you can make all the schematic parts into a library. They took out the parametric editor, but you can use the inspector tool for most of that. Maybe I can con one of my pals to use his Designer to do that. They took out database library creation, which I wanted to use to make an integrated library. I want to stress how great the program is, even as a stripper Altium Designer. There is nothing on the market even close to the capability of CircuitStudio at this price point. Designer can open CircuitStudio PCB files, but they then get converted to Designer file format. CircuitStudio can open and change Designer schematics, but not Designer PCB files. Maintenance is $150 a year for continuing updates and access to the Vault. For $1000 you get a perpetual license and a year’s updates and access to the Altium Vault of library parts. I figured I should share the precise user experience of you folks.įor occasional use, CircuitStudio is identical to Altium Designer, which costs over $5k. I didn’t ask for a freebie as a writer for EDN. After a month of misery being a stubborn guy learning something new, I gave Newark, the exclusive distributor of CircuitStudio, $1000. It’s buggy, slow to load, crashes occasionally, and has a new and infuriating user interface. Last December I downloaded a trial of the Altium CircuitStudio circuit board CAD (computer-aided design) program.
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