Two engineers compete to design a PCB in only 1 hour! Who will win?
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
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Which PCB design software do you think is best? Share your thoughts below.
Nicholas managed to complete a functional and well-rounded PCB layout within the one-hour limit, demonstrating the efficiency and capability of KiCad, especially for open-source software. Jerry's work in Altium was also commendable, but Nicholas's ability to quickly adapt and incorporate additional features gave him the edge in this battle.
Great job to both engineers for their hard work and impressive skills! Looking forward to more exciting challenges like this one. 🚀💻🔧
Yeah I think both guys did great! Nicolas was super fast! Thanks for watching.
Am I imaggining things or are Jerry's IO transistors reversed? Shouldn't the emmiter and collector be swapped?
To be fair, this battle really doesn't make that much sense, in my opinion. Most people using Altium over KiCad would be designing something significantly more complicated than the design here. I like KiCad and it's great for hobbyist designs but when you get into deeper water, Altium shows its values. But saying this, I really despise the Altium company. They overcharge for software and they treat their customer base like fools with money.
I really hope KiCad continues to improve and eventually we won't have to deal with Altium's shady business practices. I've had to use Altium professionally, the software is great, but the company really doesn't stay out of your way (and it's continuing to get way too unreasonably expensive).
Thanks for commenting!
what a perfect summary. i couldn't agree more.
One thing Altium does is the RF impedance matching for you. This is where the PCB track layout is critical. It will simulate the circuit and draw frequency response curves so you know it will work before manufacturing it.
Maybe, you can help addressing all features & functions that make KiCAD way better than now 😂
I don't think the video was trying to be an objective test anyway
Goes to show the power of open-source software that it can match a $12000 software at least for this general purpose design
True, but anyway every open source project need some bussiness plan to speedup developenement.
12k is obscene..
@@Patrick-bm6ih, lol, try mentor. > $100k
I am currently designing a 900+ component, 12 power supplies, 24 internal USB lines (don't ask), HDMI, Ethernet and much more, with KiCad on a 6 layer board that measures 380x180mm. On _my_ computer KiCad is a little bit annoyingly "sluggish" during tracing. Not enough to warrant a $12000 upgrade by any means, just wanted to convey that Kicad is capable but there is a definite upper limit within reach of "Advanced Hobbyists" (or whatever I should call myself).
As for the challenge; Great Idea, and from my PoV the individuals made more difference than the tools. When I started with KiCad ver 4, it was horrendous to work with and I wouldn't recommend it to my enemies, but the transformation that started in ver 5 has been a blessing to the hobbyists, makers and start-up companies.
Wow, that's a complex design! Thankfully, most designs I see aren't that complicated:) I agree the difference is more the engineer than the software, especially in 1 hour race like this. But pitting these two tools against each other also sounded like fun.
performance will depend greatly on your GPU
@@AmauryJacquot That could of course be the case, but I don't think so. The sluggishness is not in the rendering itself. For instance, adding a trace is fairly instant,, but removing it has a few hundred ms delay. Turning on/off a layer is practically instant, but when dragging a trace, it is very sluggish. So to me, it looks like data structure search and modifications are not optimized for certain operations.
Btw, I am running on a fairly old GTX970, but still better than most Intel Integrated.
@@niclashhow many layers are you working on ?
@@thanatosor 2 ground planes, which are not visible, but typically I keep the remaining 4 layers visible.
I would love to see another battle where both designers receive the exact same schematic, part list, current and voltage constraints, board size and mounting scheme. Anyway, thanks for sponsoring this, it reminded me of the old 'PCB Benchmark' contests.
Thanks Jack for the feedback!
I'm experimenting with different battle formats. For the second battle (already recorded and coming soon) I give everyone the same parts list to design from.
Then in another battle I provide the finished schematic to them for a more simple design so they have time to complete a good, clean PCB design within the time limit, and then we'll order the boards, and then they'll race to see who can assemble and test their board the fastest.
@@PredictableDesignsanother idea would be to provide the engineers/competitors with pin maps instead of a finished schematic. Like a firmware engineer may give to a hardware engineer to implement.
KiCAD is the best! Couple of years ago my team (including myself) designed a 10 layers CPU module in KiCAD 6 with a SoC which has ~2000 pins 0.5 pitch in a BGA, with a couple of LPDDR4 SDRAM chips, with PCIe, USB3, HDMI, CSI2 and all other regular stuff. The board works pretty well and is being produced in small series. Previosuly we used Cadence for such designs and it was a real pain in the arse. Never used Altium because it's Windows only and we are all Linux/BSD fans.
Awesome, thanks for sharing. This shows KiCad can do really complex designs too.
Do you have Discord or any contract ? 😂
Love to learn more about kiCAD-based company.
@@thanatosor , sorry I do not use Discord. Try to email me to ruslan.zalata at gmail.com
I don't want to feel I wasted 5 years in school 😫...I don't want to....I want to become an engineer, specifically in electronics. Help on where to start. Haven't designed anything in this race or worked with a team to design anything is making me feel so left out and unemployed 😫🫠...no resource no money but u just have data to watch these online videos, people living kind of ur dream path is making the brain fried😫😵💫
I want to do this shit too but don't know the fuvking shit😞
You want to start but it's night already, swallowed up in scarcity.. what's left is for u to somehow manage to get picked by a company to spoon feed u with all the knowledge u desire while giving you the appropriate time to master ur craft. Everything just moved so fast and have already spent 5 years doing maths and jagon that I don't understand... theories I don't grab well with no practical works...if i just had the money I could have invested heavily on online education and simulations...not a proud stud😞
Great competition 🎉 also really fun to watch. Kicad team here
Great to hear, glad it was fun to watch!
I recently switched to Kicad and in the beginning was frustrating and that was 100% because of my "muscle memory" from the other software. It happens every time when I switch softwares. After some 10 ish days though I got used to it and I will never look back. It is so easy to work with and evolves great. I have never tried Altium, but it is way way out of my budget as a beginner hobbyist from "the third world" country.
Which country are you from? I am from india
Same for me and my friendss here in Brasil
@@amankumar990 Bulgaria
I have a commercial license of AD (regret every bit of it), and I still use KiCAD as my daily driver. It's not about money, KiCAD is just way smoother than most of its competitors (maybe rest of Allegro, which a complete suite is in the ballpark of $20k).
I think this challenge would benefit from having the contestants choose between 2-4 premade board shapes/outlines with mounting holes.
It would be interesting to see how they'll handle the constraints and approach to circuit layout. Great video!
It's definitely Key-Cad. I did the same research and made that clear in one of my videos.
I am for KiCad, but never underestimate that the guy using it is younger (means faster) than the other guy, regardless of the experience of them both
I love these videos! thanks John for making them. Also it is insane how powerful KiCad really is.
Awesome to hear! Thank you! Yeah KiCad is pretty amazing.
Nicholas is just good at what he does
KiCAD is often called a tool for hobbyists, but Altium is so expensive that even small companies can't afford it. There are plenty of Kickstarters for electronic gadgets and I doubt that most of those will spend their limited resources on Altium.
Very good vedio. I use KiCAD complete some projects, 8L substrate, 4L conversion board, working well. Some limitation in KiCAD,
1. Max layer count is 24 Layers,
2. Trace width setting is by net name, it cannot set to by layer,
3. no degassing hole for plane.
However, KiCAD is still my favorite one.
"Max layer count is 24 Layers" where would you even have those made?
@@TheSwissGabber some of my projects need 40-50 layers.
1. You can now do 32. Also you can generate pure planes (only via cutouts and no traces) using DFM tools, so unrouted power/gnd planes don't count in this 32 layer limit.
2. In version 8, you can add custom rules, just like Altium's queries.
3. Balancing copper can be added using scripts, so are any periodical structures.
@@bskull3232 that sound great, in version 8 ?
@@spicyeddie Correct. V8 brings in quite a few new features.
I didn't know one could also do a simple enclosure (CAD) design in KiCad. Fantastic video!
He was actually using Fusion 360 for the 3D modeling, not KiCad for that part. Sorry if that was confusing.
I really like these kinda of videos you make, I hope we can see lots of them in the future
Thank you, and you will see lots of them in the future.
I heard it's better to do 4 layer with two grounds in the middle, and as much ground on top and bottom as possible to reduce RF and RMI. The dialetric space between the layers on a two layer board (top/boittom) is apparently too much to reduce noise according to some experts out there. That might be why stitching is so important.
@@PatrickHoodDaniel 👍 this is what I always do
An interesting watch. How about a similar experiment, Altium v KiCad, creating the same library part, symbol & footprint from scratch against the clock? I'd really like to see that.
That's coming in a few days!
The main reason I prefer Altium over Kicad is the MCAD CoDesigner, they did a really good job there.
Previously, I had to export the PCB to STEP (or whatever format your mechanical engineer prefers), transfer it to the mechanical department, they check it, update the shape/layout, and I try to match it; rinse and repeat.
With the MCAD CoDesigner feature, it's way easier to collaborate, just 1 button to push, 1 button to pull and update simultaneously. :)
honestly, I'm for Kicad because I'm a beginner, but if you want more options i recommend using altium designer, thank you, we want more videos like this 👍
Awesome, thanks for the feedback!
Connecting throught the resistor was cool. I didn't know that was possible.
Me too. Thanks for all the great comments you've made!
I would love to see Xpedition vs Altium!!
The comparison depends on the designer's skill, not so much on the EDA, but the fun would be to see a BGA design and the use of interactive routes on high speed lines or the PDN and EM power analysis on the PCB. Best Regards from Argentina
I really think we need more of this kind ... like a competition 😂
Great to hear! Thanks.
With any software it is hard to compete and declare a winner. So many more aspects are important than just speed. IMHO licensed software is a policy sold to the user, while FOSS doesn't sell anything. No guarantees, no guaranteed upgrades, patches, polished GUI or maintenance. It is hard to say which is better, but if you look at a few examples: Apache vs IIS, Python vs .C#, Blender vs Adobe? (don't even know) It is totally clear that FOSS provides more than adequate software to work with. But no claims. Often it is up to company policy whether FOSS is allowed in production.
Nice. A comparison with EasyEDA would be interesting to watch too. What are your thoughts on it?
EasyEDA is definitely on the list:) Thanks for watching!
@@PredictableDesigns I like when you do the comments like ".. I see that you're using the esp32-s2....". Right after that, and it might be totally my impression, seemed like Jerry had something to say about the "why" he chose it. He said it so confidently. It would also be cool if you could point out to simpletons like myself, interesting patterns/techniques/tricks that they use. Those could either be about the tool itself, but also on the circuit design, and so on. I love those little details about how people think and build their thought processes.
Keep up the good job, btw.
EasyEDA is a lot easier to use and more productive than KiCAD.
Ah, and of course, there can't be just one match. What about the re-match? Or, best out of 3?
I've found that EasyEDA's libraries are a lot bigger than KiCAD, and you can search using LCSC part numbers and get symbols and footprints for almost anything on LCSC, way more than KiCAD.
When wprking in KiCAD I felt like a significant amount of time.was spent manually downloading symbols and footprints from GitHub or just making them myself, which feels like a waste of time when people have certainly used the same components on PCBs before
I design boards with hundreds of components, thousands of pads (and that's all without big scary BGAs), and I exclusively use KiCAD.
I also design dimensional critical boards such as printed microstrip RF voodoos and printed transformers, ranging from signal to kilowatts, again, all with KiCAD.
And I do have a commercial license of Altium Designer, so it's nothing about money. It's just the combination of faster algorithm and easy scripting made KiCAD much more productive for me.
And lastly, on similar hardware, Gnome 46 just runs way faster than Win 11. My workstation (7940HS) is WAY faster running Ubuntu 24.04 than my similar specced laptop (U9-185H) running Win 11. If not for certain apps, mostly tax, banking, and other government-related stuff requiring Windows, I would not even consider a Windows laptop in the first place.
Nicholas did a great job! Well done bro
@PredictableDesigns - Great to see a head-to-head with Altium and KiCad - and also Fusion 360 thrown in :-)
Altium surely has features way beyond KiCad's current capabilities. Altium certainly has features way beyond my abilities. As an enthusiast, free sounds better than $12k perpetual license.
Not sure if you've done this already - if not - EasyEDA vs KiCad?
KiCad rocks! Bet it will be the #1 EDA software soon
I use KiCAD when I can professionally. With some more complex designs I want a more sophisticated constraint manager but with the other overhead that comes with higher end software, I put up with a lot before I make the switch. At the rate of improvement we're seeing from KiCAD I'm confident it's the right bet long term.
Hey Ray! Thanks for commenting.
Now add Cadence OrCAD in the battle; for sure, it's the third to finish. 😛
Mentor:
still trying to connect to corporate database...
If ever finish at all. Used Cadence for a decade before discovered KiCAD.
Well, this confirms that I'm not the only one. Just image the shear amount of effort needed to perform to simply create Gerber files 🤣
Make more of this type of content. Maybe your subscribers can participate in the future. Great content. Very enjoyable.
That's the plan! Anyone that's interested in participating can contact me.
How fun!!!!
Thanks Mike!
I guess there should be a rematch with some specific tasks and exactly the same to be performed on each software. Like find easy common and difficult components, footprint matching and designing too, footprint changing, routing related task, reworks, schematics rework to pcb updates, diff pair routing, length matching, multi components footprint updates, like that many practical challenges need to performed 1 to 1. that would be interesting to see. thanks
Great ideas, thanks for sharing!
Thanks
Wow, what an interesting format!
Thank you!!
this video its making me to update my kicad XD
It's not battle between kicad and altium. It's battle between two engineers.
Didn't know the lead singer from Ah Ha is into PCBs.
impressive
Gajab dimaak sir Ji 😊😊
If you've spent 5-10 years making Altium efficient by templates, vast database libraries and common design rules and all that. And you know your way around the software (which is VAST), you're flying through the design when it counts.
I've done designs on Altium with similar complexity within an hour from first schematic to gerbers to boardhouse.
It's all about how well you've prepped on Altium , if it's not prepped and tuned, you're shafted on Altium, it's just too vast of a software.
That's cool video, thank you!
Glad you liked it!
I have an annual competition in school called "TIE - Technolgies of Interconnections in Electronics" and, since I'm working with Altium Designer starting with 2016 - passing from an older Orcad Layout - I could participate to this contest. BUT I didn't because "which is the best" PCB software label does NOT come down to speed (which TIE was all about) but to capabilities. I don't know KiCad but I know Altium and I would NOT leave it unless I'll switch to Cadence Allegro (maybe). Strangely enough, there's a more "advanced" competition called TIE+ - also related to PCBs but the "advanced stuff" and that competition usually goes for around one week and not 3-4 hours like TIE alternative. I wonder why is so long (differentials, complex routing, PCB stack, controlled impedances, and the list can go on). I'm not an Altium affiliate, I'm just working with it so I have to say that speed doesn't mean "better"! If you have a huge/complex PCB, planning is your friend, not speed!
Some edits: for me, Altium has a nice looking GUI over Allegro but from what I heard, Allegro is more capable in some aspects, the downside is that it throws a bunch of files in project directory - thing that I don't like. KiCAD is for rapid prototypes, I would give it a chance! If it does have libs importer from Altium then it's a plus for me!
Open source is what we should do to all softwares
Great Video John! Was very impressed with Nicholas' demonstration of what later KiCad versions can do - it seems to have come quite a way from the V4 that I have installed. The only real "cheater" I could see from Nicholas was using open-source KiCad on a non-open source O/S :-) Jerry - just as interesting - have never been able to afford Altium, so was nice to see it in real use. Thanks guys, quite cool. And thanks John for not insisting on using STM32's 😛 Oh, and I also like the "Kee-Cad" pronounciation better 🙂
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I agree and I think they both did a great job with so little time.
Thanks for this video. Here is a kicad user.
You're welcome!
Started with KiCad and learned Altium as well. I agree that for general purpose boards KiCad is king. I can see why companies would want Altium through their use with workspace and design rules. I guess if were designing a board that may be printed thousands of times over... go with Altium lol
Yeah, for a large firm with lots of engineers then Altium makes sense. But for independents and smaller teams I think KiCad holds up just fine. Thanks for commenting!
I switched to Kicad since v4 because cadsoft/autocad eagle was too limited. Kicad is more powerful than anything I could design, and V6 is really usable, freerouting is also a powerful addon
Key CAD
This battle isn't necessarily an indicator of which program is more efficient, but rather which user was more efficient. For complex designs, I can create boards in Altium much faster than KiCad.
Would be nice getting someone on the show that is a little bit more proficient in Altium
Can KiCad import an Altium project? If so, how well, or what are the limitations? Can it convert not just the schematics, but the PCB Layout, libraries, etc?
Not really. You can convert a schematic but it usually loses it connection to the PCB layout. All PCB software wants you to stick with their software so they make switching difficult.
Previously I was using Alitum 15. But after the new UI change i really hated Altium. Later switched to Kicad , and has been using it since V5. One thing i hated when i switched to Kicad is the lack of component libraries, but almost all components can be imprted from samacsys or snapeda. Or can be easily created. Not only that with each version Kicad gets better and better. Altium is definitely good for large projects with high speed desgins, but for most projects I prefer kicad. And just like you, I never liked eagle cad even in its glorious days. And Nicholas uses the Kicad very efficiently.
Thanks for sharing that!
Using Altium one handed was some sort of handicap/flex?. Not using shortcuts nakes everything at least twice as slower.
KiCAD!
this was pretty good. almost a complete draw.
Would like to see a battle with someone reasonably seasoned in the latest Fusion 360 Electronics. I've been using it since it was Eagle and the version now built into fusion is very different. You've previously said Fusion is terrible but I think that might be based on out of date experience. I've had no issues and the library support is excellent.
Great point and I've not used it since it was Eagle. I'm also doing a 3D design battle soon:)
This is the Esports of CADs! 😂😂😂😂
I think the differences show up with more complex designs. I design 14 layer pcbs with FPGAs (BGA) with more than 1600 pins and imdedance controlled lines. I never used KICAD, but i could imagine, that this tool ist super for small hobby designs.
Seem my comment below. Routing 10L, 2000 balls 0.5 pitch and lotsa high speed stuff was a piece of cake in KiCAD 6. With KiCAD 8 it is even more joyful. Altium is a bloat. Cadnce is just bogus and lame.
@@ruslanzalata sounds like i should have a look into it. It is very good, that there are free tools which develop in such a great way...
KiCad is great for non-hobby commercial designs too. Most products don't need a 14 layer PCB with 1600 pin BGA's, thankfully:) Thanks for commenting!
Hi John, binging all your vids. Do you think non-hardware oriented founders can build and launch an electronic product?
Yes, and many do. Hardware development is only a small part of what it takes to bring a new product to market. Almost no one has experience in all of these areas. For example, I think marketing is the most important piece for success, and many hardware developers are bad at it and in fact hate marketing.
This is not a fair assessment. You are testing how fast they can connect the dots. Not how fast they can design a correct PCB. PCB design is much more than simply connecting the dots.
I don't disagree. Future battles will be more focused on completing a good PCB design with design reviews at the end pointing out any shortcomings.
Cool video. I would take much longer though.
Yeah, I think most of us would. I wouldn't count on either of these designs to function properly:)
Altium is fantastic tool, but this price... Why there is no version for hobby designers...
There is no value to this unless they both did the SAME circuit - waste of time!
Thanks for the feedback.
it's funny because the context is "design a PCB"
Interesting video! It would be cool to reverse engineer Seeed Studio Xiao BLE/Wifi and it's expansion pack so that people don't have to wait for it to be available. The product I am attempting to design only needs a BLE chip, BLE antennae , USB-C, and a servo controller (4.6-5 Volt options) running on a single battery source. I do not know how to make PCB boards and my electronics knowledge is very limited. I think it would be of great interest to noobs to have a resource with ideal examples used to achieve basic requirements for new age PCB boards such as BLE/Wifi chips, antennae, power source, servo controllers, and typical ports. Also, noobs would need to know how to connect all of those examples together on the PCB. Open source PCB software would be ideal to for noobs. Just fruit for thought.
Thank you!
Does Nicholas have a UA-cam channel?
For me its KiCad, it more efficient on what I see
why not use easyeda ?
We will in a future battle.
@@PredictableDesigns easyeda is not open it is part of lcsc jlcpcb group
I prefer open free software
Why no Diptrace🤔. One could easily make a two layer pcb(seven layers possible with no size limitations even in the time limited trial version-that does not need internet activation🤫) , inhouse with the dxf export capabilities. Also it is far easier to create a custom pattern in minutes from a cad model(dxf import), or digital calipers. Could easily convert any Eagle libraries and pcbs with the free scripts.❤️👍
Actually DipTrace is in my next battle!
it feels like every person in this video is on adderall
Lol
KiCad for sure :)😂
I prefer easyeda online version
can i have Nicolas and Jerry yt if they have
EasyEDA Pro would be 10x faster and get a better design then this, i feel like these guys environments are not set up correctly and they are not that comfortable with their dev environments. Also I am not seeing the recommended 22 ohm resistors on the D+ and D- lines, also using a USBLC6-2SC6 for ESD is a much simpler solution then anything else. Also usually 3 decoupling caps for the mini modules as well as bulk capacitance for the USB power supply usually 47uF or more if you can fit it
I'd love to see EasyEDA in a challenge like that!
It's on my list to do soon:)
"Could you please conduct a survey?"
What kind of survey do you mean?
Well I think Altium won with that price tag
Nobody seems to have pointed it out yet, but Jerry's transistors make no sense. I think he was going for open collector (common emitter), but he has the collectors wired to ground. Even if we exchange emitter and collector, he has no current-setting resistor on the base. Actually, with E and C as drawn, the NPN transistor will still function as a rather poor transistor. But the B-C junction shorts the MCU output to ground... (due to lack of current-setting base resistor), so that's also bad. Clearly all this indicates that Kicad is better than Altium 🙂. (Actually, each has its merits, of course.)
KiCad Wins..!!!!!
KiCad
i am student i am use KiCad
How you at all work with cad software with only one hand and a mouse ...no offense but that's a very beginners approach, you guys may be professionals but very inefficient once.
Are you proposing they also use their feet? Haha. Thanks for commenting.
@@PredictableDesigns
A video with such a name comparing two products suppose people who are using those products to use them efficiently, and that's what is not shown. I am using Altium, previously Protel for 25+ years, and I can't imagine working with one hand without short cuts. Altium is far from a good cad, have a lot a flows and issues, it serve it's purpose for small to mid complexity pcb's, but KiCad is even further back, exactly because it's inefficiency and lack of tools. Yes last versions showed significant progress in some areas but still far back. And if you create such a video, you should first say what the objectives are, what type of board you want to compare, and then find users that can use them efficiently so you can compare them objectively.
Open source products are generally inferior to their commercial counterparts. Kicad is absolutely terrible. It's buggy and frustrating to use.
Thanks for commenting, although I totally disagree:)
Which version did you use?
@@PredictableDesigns That's fine. Just understand that open source is a race to the bottom. End users get crappy software with no real commercial options because no vendor can compete with free. Nobody benefits from inferior software.
@@Fusion12345 I used 6, 7 and recently 8. They all progressively suck less. KiCAD has a clunky, sloppy, and poorly organized user interface. It was clearly designed by people who despise GUIs. Creating a bus, for instance, is unbelievable tedious, painful and buggy. The idea of learning a mini-programming language to assign pins to wires is a ridiculous 1960's solution. EasyPCB is far superior to it. Sadly, the era of quality software is long gone. The UNIX malware has completely infected computers as soon as they became powerful enough to run it.
@@bobweiram6321 What a horrible take. OSS forces companies to differentiate their product from the free alternative, creating features instead of price creep. A market consisting of purely paid software is the true race to the bottom, "how can we sell the product that takes us the least amount of work to create for the highest price that we can"
If your paid software can't compete with something that people create in their free time / through donations... maybe reconsider if what you're selling is actually worth anything.