# best simplified PCB layout program for MAC OSX??



## qusp

Hi guys, i'm taking on my first DIY PCB of my own, starting pretty simple and just going to create a small PCB (possibly 2) for combining the output of my dac/amp, (transportable) and p[ower supply complete with sense lines and star ground

 so to the point, I need to find a fairly noob friendly PCB layout package for mac OSX, free is good, but good is better, so I dont mind shelling out a few bucks if its something that is likely to become a tool I can continue to use.

 the PCB will be dual layer with ground plane and through-hole plating, though most will be SMD.

 any pointers or recommendations welcome. there seems to be heaps for PC, but as usual not so many for mac and I would like to get some recommendations from other mac users who have actually used the software if possible. my MAC is a dual processor G5, so while its not a beast its not unusable, but I cannot run windows on it (not that I would, devil be gone!! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





)

 thanks for your time, any help is much appreciated.

 oh and in case your wondering no this isnt a product, simply something for my own personal use and most of it will not be my design anyway, simply well trodden circuits, but I want to integrate them neatly, effectively and in a compact manner, I figure its as good a place t start as any. its a good way to avoid messy decoupling mods for the opamps as well.

 thanks in advance


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## Ant1Xr1st

Eagle works perfect on my hackintosh. Also you may try this autorouter, it works well under crossover.


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## AndrewFischer

I use Eagle. Added plus is that is is cross platform. 

 I paid for a non-profit license version as some of my projects have grown to 160x100. 

 Eagle has a bit of a learning curve but it isn't too bad. There is lots of help available on-line.

 Starting with current version, the licences are cross platform too. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	





 EDIT: I don't know if Eagle will work on a G5. Might be intel only.


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## qusp

excellent, thanks guys, I have heard much about eagle, but didnt realize it was available for mac. there'll be a learning curve alright 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 but at least i'm working with known variables mostly. I will be sticking to fairly straight forward datasheet implementations for most, but will play with the decoupling values


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## AndrewFischer

Eagle 5.7 / MacOS X 10.5 / Core 2 duo iMac:

 (This is a rev 001 board done in a huge hurry. Rev 002 looks a lot better but I don't have a photo)


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## Pars

Looks good Andrew. A couple of long traces breaking up the ground plane, but sometimes...

 Who ran the boards for you?

 Also, to the OP, Tangent has some tutorials as well as some Eagle libraries on his site. I use it on my Mac at home (dual G5... still pretty powerful), and at work under Windoze (for personal use only). I also have dabbled in Diptrace, but find it somewhat more unintuitive and hardeer to find component libraries for. Fortunately, you can import libraries from Eagle with it. I needed to get around the 100x80mm restriction of the free Eagle (and needed more than 160x100; professional license for Eagle is $$$ and this is just a 1-off home board).

 I haven't seen anything else on the Mac that I like better than Eagle, just wish they would drop the price or increase the board size of the personal edition or whatever they call the step above the freeware version.


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## qusp

looks nice andrew, looks like i've got some fun'n'learn'n coming my way. i'll be alright with the 160 x 100mm for the moment and if not I guess I could get creative with pin headers, not a bad idea anyway to keep traces nice and short.

 will definitely check out tangents stuff, he does some good projects and actually I was going to see if he would mind me lifting some of the battery board for the PPA for rail splitting etc. will see how my eagle goes, may just draw some inspiration 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Pars

 yeah the G5 with 4gb memory is still pretty good really considering the age. but I also do some music production in logic pro (just for kicks); get a decent hirez project going with analogue modeling synths and long reverb tails and it does get a bit bogged down. I also do some modelling in maya, designing my next case in it, so yeah I kinda push it and do lust after an intel tower. the imacs are no good for me not expandable enough

 would be good if it was possible to increase the eagle project size on a timed/project basis, so when you need a larger workspace you could pay for a month for the pro or whatever.

 thanks again guys


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## AndrewFischer

The board certainly has room for improvement. 


 Olimex made the boards. Yes Olimex. They've improved. Still have the 1 euro charge for each drill not in the standard rack. I've got part libraries that use the .9 1.0 1.1 1.3mm before plating drill sizes so I don't have to pay the drill change surcharges.

 The $125 non-profit license is a good value for the price. I haven't come up with anything that needs more than 160x100mm. 160x100 is also the largest board Olimex will do for 30 euros... The size becomes a design parameter and I adjust the design to fit.


 Tangent is a great resource. There are other part libraries out there, but he's got layouts for parts we use. The board in the photo is using his RK097 layout with the power switch removed. The Neutrik headphone jacks are mine -- I'm happy to share if anyone wants them. Ditto for the omron relays, but I doubt anyone would want those. This isn't a hi-fi project....


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## Pars

The particular project I am working on is a backplane board for a preamp... needs to fit 6 pairs of XLRs and 6 pairs of RCAs... plus relays. Physics intervenes 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Thought that might be Olimex. I had them panelize a bunch of boards a couple of years ago and they came back looking like that. Boards I had seen pictures of from them in the past looked nowhere near as good as yours do or the ones I had them make. A pleasant surprise, and would use them again.


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## AndrewFischer

You might be able to get Olimex to make it as 2 or 4 boards on a 320x200 panel. Not ideal but you'd get around the Eagle limit.


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## Juaquin

Andrew, the suspense is killing me - what is that board? My best guess is some kind of amplifier with multiple outputs, each with their own volume control? Looks a little complicated for that but it's all I got.

 I used Eagle with my MacBook to produce some Arduino shield boards, works great.


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## stwspoon

Another alternative is using wine (windows emulator for Linux/OS X on X86) with a windows PCB app. I am currently trying out ExpressPCB. It seems to work well, and it integrates nicely with the mac. I haven't built a board yet. The wine bottler project allowed me to build ExpressPCB and ExpressSCH into OS X application bundles.

 For Mac native there is also geda and Osmond PCB.

 stan


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## AndrewFischer

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Juaquin* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Andrew, the suspense is killing me - what is that board? My best guess is some kind of amplifier with multiple outputs, each with their own volume control?_

 

It is a custom bit for a psychology lab. I was asked to duplicate an existing box. The original box was made up off off the shelf mixers, amplifiers and a relay board. Bill of materials to make an exact duplicate came out to nearly £800. It was much cheaper to design a new device. 

 So what does it do? 
 In the experiment, a baby sits on mother's lap. Mother listens to music in headphones. Baby listens to words coming from speaker and watches pictures on computer monitor. 

 There is a pageing microphone with 2 push buttons. One button switches out the music and lets experimentor talk to mother. The other button switches out the PC audio and lets the experimentor talk to whoever is in the test cell. (other than the mother)

 There is also a talk back circuit. Microphone in the test cell -- experimeter can plug in headphones and listen into whatever is going on in the test cell.

 Pots are there to set the levels. 

 This is NOT a hi-fi device. CD audio comes from a legacy computer CD-ROM drive. Headphones are driven by a National Boomer headphone chip.

 Hi-fi was not part of the design requirments. In fact I'm filtering out low frequencies as they can interfere with the experiment.


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## amb

The problem with ExpressPCB is you're locked in to them as your fab. The program does not output Gerber format like all the others do.


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## qusp

nah, eagle it is for me I think. the sheer amount of libraries is overwhelming. already found pretty much everything I need for the first project.


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## vekkt0r

I also use eagle for my pcb needs and its simply great! The more you use it the better it gets, I would not describe the learning curve as steep as its fairly fast learning easier operations. I really like the ability to customize colors and keybindings as that is the thing I tend to get annoyed about in other pcb cad programs. The only minus I can think about is the autorouter which may not be the best but it kind of fun routing by your self also(though time consuming).

 I recommend buying pcb:s from batchpcb.com, this is my first own designed pcb(not audio related) ordered from batchpcb and the pcb was just perfect:


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## qusp

wow, very nice compact layout there vekkt0r; sure looks like its built for speed


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