Re: gEDA-user: Another couple of PCBs made with gEDA/PCB

[Daniel Nilsson <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Jan 15, 2005 at 12:43:34PM -0500, DJ Delorie wrote:
> 
> Did you use the trace optimizer for that?  If so, any feedback about
> it?

I tried it, yes. But to be honest, I didn't quite understand what it
was supposed to do... What is it trying to optimize for ? Trace length
? Separation ? Towards the end of the project I was afraid to run the
optimizer because I didn't know how to control it, I wouldn't mind an
optimize routine, but I think I'll like to control which traces it is
allowed to optimize.

> As for footprints, I've decided that from now on I'm printing the
> board on paper and lining up each component with its footprint to make
> sure they all fit.

That's probably a good idea, at least if you have all components in
hand while designing the PCB... I think the other thing we should do
is to try to go through and organize the PCB footprint libraries a
little better and figure out which footprints are good and which are
bad. This was the biggest problem for me and I think many other
beginners to get started using the gEDA/PCB combo, there are many
footprints available but it's hard to know what footprints are good
and suitable for what. I know this is a large task though, and I'm not
asking someone to do this work alone. But maybe we could divide the
work and create a nice documented footprint library with documentation
on which symbols in gschem that should be used and what footprint
attribute to use ?

-- 
Daniel Nilsson