[HN Gopher] LibrePCB 0.1.7
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       LibrePCB 0.1.7
        
       Author : app4soft
       Score  : 61 points
       Date   : 2022-10-15 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (librepcb.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (librepcb.org)
        
       | twarge wrote:
       | I evaluated both this and Horizon EDA last year and found Horizon
       | to be far more powerful and polished.
       | 
       | https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
        
         | nigrioid wrote:
         | It's a real shame Horizon uses GTK.
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | Is Horizon competitive with KiCAD for hobbyist stuff yet? It
         | has some killer features, but KiCAD is just too good.
        
           | karotte wrote:
           | Horizon EDA developer here. More than enough, everything's
           | there for small to medium-sized projects.
        
             | stavros wrote:
             | Excellent, thank you! I played around with it for a bit,
             | but I got stuck trying to look for an ESP8266 footprint and
             | quit. It does look very promising overall, though.
        
               | auxym wrote:
               | Horizon can import KiCAD footprints IIRC.
        
       | sitzkrieg wrote:
       | librePCB is really great. its got a ways to go but updates like
       | this show how quickly its accelerating. while i dont hate and use
       | kicad a ton its always nice to have solid competition and choices
       | in workflows and tools and cross pollination of course
        
         | MezzoDelCammin wrote:
         | Could You expand a bit on the practical difference between
         | Kicad and librePCB? Ideally for a hobbyist/ DIYer with no high
         | frequency stuff? When / for what use case would You pick one or
         | the other?
        
           | danieleggert wrote:
           | https://librepcb.org/compare/
        
             | MezzoDelCammin wrote:
             | Thanks, but what I was after was the OPs actual experience.
             | What's "his" (or any other actual individuals) reason to
             | use one or the other.
             | 
             | Stuff like "Kicad pisses me off because of X", or "librePCB
             | really speeds up / simplifies me doing Y".
        
             | ghostpepper wrote:
             | I appreciate that they point out the weaknesses of LibrePCB
             | 
             | > So, if you are looking for an intuitive EDA tool to
             | quickly design a simple PCB, you should give LibrePCB a
             | try. But if you want to design complex PCBs, LibrePCB is
             | probably not (yet) the tool you are looking for.
        
       | brirec wrote:
       | I haven't tried LibrePCB, but I should really give it a go.
       | Designing PCBs can be fun and useful when hacking around
       | electronics.
       | 
       | I know my way around Eagle, but the free version is way too
       | restricted and I can't justify spending that kind of money when
       | it's a hobby that I poke a few times a year. But I also have had
       | a hard time getting into Kicad for the same reason -- a few
       | months ago I wanted to make a board for a project and I decided
       | to give KiCad another try, and after not making much progress
       | over a long period of time I ended up downloading Eagle and
       | dealing with the limitations.
       | 
       | I guess my rambly point is, EDA software has phenomenally bad UI
       | in my experience that takes a lot of time and effort (and
       | reading, not just poking around!) to learn, and I really would
       | love to see something that could flip that trend without itself
       | being overly limiting.
        
         | bart__ wrote:
         | Totally contra to this project, but relevant for your point. I
         | found EasyEDA, developed by the people from JLCPCB, to be very
         | easy to use for hobbiest boards. Their integration with their
         | SMT assembly service was also pretty neat for my usecase
        
           | app4soft wrote:
           | JFTR, _LibrePCB Fab_ [0] service provides integration with
           | few PCB manufacturers.
           | 
           | [0] https://librepcb.org/blog/2022-09-08_partnership_with_pcb
           | way...
        
             | brirec wrote:
             | This sounds better to me than EasyEDA since I don't want to
             | be _stuck_ with JLCPCB (though a friend uses them and I've
             | really only heard good things about them, so I'll probably
             | use them for my next project anyway...)
             | 
             | Does EasyEDA lock you into JLCPCB? I don't have anything
             | against partnering with fab houses since it can really help
             | accelerate the project, but I feel a little weird about
             | using something that's so deeply tied to another product
             | that I "don't need."
             | 
             | I feel like I should give EasyEDA a chance though either
             | way, because it can't be worse than Fritzing.
        
               | eulgro wrote:
               | What's wrong with KiCad?
        
         | rowanG077 wrote:
         | I don't agree. Just a few weeks ago I taught two people, who
         | had 0 PCB design skills, the basics in KiCAD. The first PCB
         | designed by one of them is currently being produced. It was
         | incredibly easy to teach and didn't take more then 45 minutes.
        
         | LeifCarrotson wrote:
         | A few months ago, you would have been on Kicad 6 (assuming you
         | didn't pull some ancient 5.0 release from your distro), which
         | I've found to have a great UI.
         | 
         | Like all EDA software, the UI is optimized for power users, and
         | therefore has some quirks and a learning curve for the hotkeys,
         | but I would not say that Kicad is phenomenally bad. Work your
         | way through one tutorial (eg. this recent one:
         | https://youtu.be/aVUqaB0IMh4) and make a quick-reference note
         | for shortcuts, and you can probably be off to the races.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _LibrePCB 0.1.4 Released_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23059615 - May 2020 (20
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _LibrePCB 0.1.3 released, now with DRC_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21676027 - Dec 2019 (33
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _LibrePCB: First stable release published_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18569969 - Nov 2018 (51
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _LibrePCB: First release candidate_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18302409 - Oct 2018 (5
       | comments)
        
       | ur-whale wrote:
       | Eagle library import - nice (assuming it works).
       | 
       | Does KiCad support this feature?
        
       | hulitu wrote:
       | > Only one library file format for all kinds of library elements
       | 
       | This is not a good thing. It is easier for reuse to have separate
       | symbol, footprint and 3d file.
        
         | rnestler wrote:
         | They are different files, just using the same S-expression
         | based format.
        
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