circuit board programs

[kell]

My first time doing a printed circuit board. I've gotta send out a
printed circuit to be fabbed that actually has a small 1" x 2" circuit
repeated many times on one large board, which I will then score or have
rows of holes along which to break it into its constituent copies.
I went to expresspcb.com because it looked user-friendly. Drew a
circuit and went to copy it to another area on the grid. But you can't
position a copy; the program just plunks it down arbitrarily in the
middle of the screen. So I think I need to use a different program.
Does anyone have knowledge of a program (pc fabbing houses will accept)
that allows one to draw a circuit in a small area, then copy/repeat it
many times to fill a large board.

 

[Bob Eldred]

My first time doing a printed circuit board. I've gotta send out a
printed circuit to be fabbed that actually has a small 1" x 2" circuit
repeated many times on one large board, which I will then score or have
rows of holes along which to break it into its constituent copies.
I went to expresspcb.com because it looked user-friendly. Drew a
circuit and went to copy it to another area on the grid. But you can't
position a copy; the program just plunks it down arbitrarily in the
middle of the screen. So I think I need to use a different program.
Does anyone have knowledge of a program (pc fabbing houses will accept)
that allows one to draw a circuit in a small area, then copy/repeat it
many times to fill a large board.

Expresspcb will do what you want. Yes it plunks the copy down in the middle
of the screen but you simply select the copy with the arrow tool by throwing
a box around it then move it to where you want. Press ctrl-V and another
copy appears in the center of the screen. Repeat the process as many times
as you like. If you don't want the copy to appear in the center of your
work, scroll off to the side so the center of the screen is not on your
work.
Bob

 

[Walter Harley]

My first time doing a printed circuit board. I've gotta send out a
printed circuit to be fabbed that actually has a small 1" x 2" circuit
repeated many times on one large board, which I will then score or have
rows of holes along which to break it into its constituent copies.
I went to expresspcb.com because it looked user-friendly. Drew a
circuit and went to copy it to another area on the grid. But you can't
position a copy; the program just plunks it down arbitrarily in the
middle of the screen. So I think I need to use a different program.
Does anyone have knowledge of a program (pc fabbing houses will accept)
that allows one to draw a circuit in a small area, then copy/repeat it
many times to fill a large board.

Look for "panelize" as a key word. Note that some fabs will panelize for
free, and others not. Some CAD software contains routines to panelize.

ExpressPCB's software is easy to use, but it does lock you into using them
as a vendor. Eagle (free for nonprofit hobby use, with certain limitations)
is general-purpose CAD software, and quite a lot harder to learn, but you
can use it with any vendor. Olimex (http://www.olimex.com) will panelize
for free, and will directly accept the .brd file that Eagle produces, so
they're pretty easy to work with; you don't need to panelize the board
within the software, you just draw it once and then they make multiple
copies.

 

[kell]

Look for "panelize" as a key word. Note that some fabs will panelize for
free, and others not. Some CAD software contains routines to panelize.

ExpressPCB's software is easy to use, but it does lock you into using them
as a vendor. Eagle (free for nonprofit hobby use, with certain limitations)
is general-purpose CAD software, and quite a lot harder to learn, but you
can use it with any vendor. Olimex (http://www.olimex.com) will panelize
for free, and will directly accept the .brd file that Eagle produces, so
they're pretty easy to work with; you don't need to panelize the board
within the software, you just draw it once and then they make multiple
copies.

Thanks a bunch.