To make a board you create the schematic first. But the autorouter probably saved 100 hours of putting the traces in by hand (assuming I could have pulled that off). In the case of the 5X5 board above, I spent approximately 24 hours cleaning it up. So plan on fixing the majority of the traces yourself. The design that the autorouter produces is not pretty and is in no way suitable for manufacturing. I use it only to get the traces in place. It routed the board in less than 2 minutes. I downloaded the trial version of the Pro Router and installed it. After over 12 hours of running and not completing I shut it down.

The board was a 5X5 inch, 4-layer board with over 300 components. I actually purchased Pro Router when I was trying to design a complex board about 2 years ago. The free one that comes with the program isn't very good. Basically what I am doing is giving the router the best chance at completing the connections.Īs for the autorouter, I purchased the Pro Router. My design experience goes back to the black tape and Bishop pad days. I place the components on the board based on the connections between them and on over 30 years of board design experience. I use the autorouter most of them time if the board has more than about 20 components on it. The user forum is fairly active and you can find good tips there. I have encountered a few minor problems but Tech Support has always been quick to respond (M-F) with the solutions. They were all 2-layer and 4-layer boards with the exception of 2 single layer boards. I have purchased 2 upgrades to get the features that were added with the upgrades.ĭuring the 3 years I have designed approximately 50 boards.

I have been using it for a little over 3 years. He was asking if anyone else had used Easy-PC.

This reply is for steve17 in response to a post he made on July 28. I haven't looked at this post in about 6 months.

P cad lib