Wonder if I should start learning Kicad now

EAGLE used to sell perpetual licenses until version 7. Then it's subscription only but you still can buy different level of subscriptions at different prices, from the $10 per month basic 2-layer 80cm^2 board to full professional version. Now it's just one price, with jumbo'd up suite of Autodesk stuff and the highest level of EAGLE if you wish to use it to make a few bucks. If I started learning PCB design today, I would try Kicad but so many projects and parts since I started using EAGLE, ...

$500 per year just to keep up with latest EAGLE or be stuck with whatever version I have. Even Arduino LLC is pitching in for Kicad's development:

Has anyone doing consulting projects switched to Kicad?

No, I've stuck with my Eagle 7.7 Pro license. I do not envision changing from that.

CrossRoads:
No, I've stuck with my Eagle 7.7 Pro license. I do not envision changing from that.

Better have a spare windows machine.

I got caught with an OS upgrade that no longer supported AutoCAD some 20 years back.

For new project you use Kicad in integrated version.
If you have old eagle project they can't be open with integrated "Kicad" version.

But stand alone version eeschema and pcbnew has capability to transform an eagle file in kicad files.
Once transformed you can import these files into a new kicad project.

The current kicad won’t run on my 10.13 based hackintosh. I am sad.
PCB/Sch programs ought not have such dependencies.
(The future of EAGLE on Mac is also questionable. Sigh. V7 forever!)

Sorry I abandoned this thread. I ended up buying a book on kicad and will be following along to learn how to use kicad 5.x. I have EAGLE 6.6 which is what I'm using in the foreseeable future but I wish I got 7.7 before they switched to the damned AutoDesk subscription that eventually evolved into a jumbo FUSION package costing you $600 a year subscription with stuff most of us may not use. I have downloaded EAGLE 6.6 windows, linux, and macOS install files so I'm not worried that I'll not find a computer to run it until I either am using kicad 6 well enough or bite the bullet to pay AutoDesk. I can start with converting some of my simpler designs. It's always the parts library not the software I worry most about. But, I've had some scares with corrupted EAGLE project files and had to learn how to un-corrupt them so I understand how EAGLE files are organized and hope kicad has an XML file format, which is so much easier than binary.

To think about it, EAGLE is like a language, with how boards and schematics are described and how user language programs are written and then if you subscribe to it, you can speak this language and build your knowledge of PCB around this commercial language. If you stop paying, heaven forbids you from ever speaking this language until you start paying again. How much of our knowledge base has been built on commercial languages? Matlab? Excel? Origin? Maple? I'd rather start learning to speak some free languages such as Python and kicad while I can still learn new things. Or least I can purchase a perpetual license of the language I learn to speak.

The current kicad won't run on my 10.13 based hackintosh.

Apparently this turns out to be more of a "it's unexpectedly difficult to compile code for older OSes on Newer systems", so the KICAD people can't provide binaries that aren't dependent on the new OS. (ie: Apple's fault for changing APIs.)
I'm told that in theory, I should be able to build it from source. :frowning:

It's hard to build from source. I'm not an expert of Make or CMake or linux toolchain. It's hard when things don't work and need change. It's then kicad's fault they don't bother to set up a virtual machine for each relevant version of supported OS for build and test. It's not YOUR fault your computer isn't as new as the ones the developers use.

I have a similar issue but this is my own project I'm building. I'm using an older version of ESP-IDF SDK (was newest release when I started the project) and upgrading to new version proves hard. Still haven't been able to make the upgrade so all my source code is stuck in the old SDK. I'm just a PCB designer and firmware developer. Do I have to be linux wiz and CMake ninja as well? Give me a break!

This topic was automatically closed 120 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.