Since Autodesk acquired Eagle a few years ago, they’ve been throwing out all the stops. There is now a button in Eagle that flips your board from the front to the back — a feature that should have been there twenty years ago. There’s parametric part generation, push and shove routing, integration with Fusion 360, and a host of other features that makes Eagle one of the best PCB layout tools available.
Today, Autodesk is introducing something revolutionary. The latest version of Eagle (version 8.7.1) comes with a manual serpentine routing mode, giving anyone the same tools as the geniuses at Nokia twenty years ago.
The new serpentine routing mode is invoked via the SNAKE command. This brings up serpentine routing interface, where you can add nets and place your serpentine router. Click anywhere on the screen, and you can route around pads and traces to collect all the vias, hopefully netting a high score.
There are some tricks to this new mode. Control and Shift change the speed of serpentine routing, and the current zoom level changes the initial speed. As you route between vias, the serpentine router grows longer, making routing significantly more difficult, but if you’re up to the task you’ll eventually get a ‘You’re Winner’ screen.
This is just the innovation we’ve been looking for from Autodesk since their acquisition of Eagle. It’s not push and shove routing, and it’s not parametric part generation. Serpentine routing is the next big thing in EDA tools, and already this routing mode is on the upcoming feature list for KiCad. The KiCad version of serpentine routing will be pronounced, ‘sneak’.
Just did one PCB layout last week for a client using Eagle. After using KiCad or even Altium Designer all my life I can certainly say that Eagle is the worst tool available for PCB layout. All the tools seems incomplete and simple tools that every other software use, Eagle seems to no have it.
If you like tools with 90’s functionalities, Eagle is the right for you
That’s what everyone who doesn’t know how to use eagle says. I can do anything in Eagle that I used to do in Altium and the UI is SOOO much less bloated than that turd.
This has also been my experience (I’ve used Altium and Eagle professionally). And I can say without a doubt that I will never use Eagle again with the current licensing model. It is dead to me.
https://imgur.com/gallery/0mKXcg1
Actual Cannibal, Shia Labeouf!
“other features that makes Eagle one of the best PCB layout tools available” Haha, that was a really bad one, as far as April Fool’s go. But I LOL’ed, so well done :-)
Sorry, can’t hear you over my curved traces
Something to do while I wait for Quartus. Finally! Well done! :D
Holy crap, it actually works! You have to eat vias to change layers which was a nice touch. Why do I see a badge in the future?
You got me at “geniuses at Nokia”.
All the nice stuff! I cant afford the snake option, all I can afford is worm routing (partial trace). I heard they are working on eel routing (traces with consideration of high voltage).
Under eagles scrutiny, mouse routing is even faster!
Very good Brian..Watch out they will be wanting articles of at least t his quality for the other 364 days!!
Seriously Brian did you forget to clear this with @problemchild68 first? AND you missed the memo about making money on the internet? Hang the DJ!
oh shit my bad srry
In the land of Benchovia April 1st is everyday of any week any year.
Well, it is Easter, after all. :-)
It’s shit tbh, like most holidays and special occasions. The grinch was right.
Has anyone heard of the B-E-N-C-H-O-F-F Project?
https://github.com/erichVK5/B-E-N-C-H-O-F-F-Project
It’s a repo with freely distributable parts libraries for use by FLOSS EDA toolchains….
holy shit this is awesome
I actually believed this for quite a while…
Eagle’s subscription model really does suck. I’m really looking forward to LibrePCB.
Is that legitly being made??
I used Eagle for a decade. I liked the simplicity and lack of bloat. Then the new licensing model made me switch to Kicad. I’m glad they are throwing money at the product, but it’d take a *lot* more for me to even consider going back.
Still got my $49 version. No intent to upgrade. I do not do enough boards to make it financially viable.I’m just waiting for them to screw the pooch, so someone who will offer it for a reasonable price comes along.
Yeah, the price is not right. but you can register an edu account without any hassle and get free access.
Got me