Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

horizon-eda.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 105 posts

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#21

Post by karotte »

popped wrote: post #20
karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

Does it support: Differential pair routing Pin swapping... ie a differential pair where the pins can be reversed Pin agnostic routing, ie a MCU or FPGA where it doesn't matter which pin is used Incremental part placement, unlike kicad where all the footprints get dumped on the board in a big mess at the start These are things that bother me most in kicad (it does have diff pair routing) Thanks - looking forward to ta…

> Differential pair routing

Yes, uses KiCad's push&shove router

> Pin swapping... ie a differential pair where the pins can be reversed

Not really, but swapping P/N in a diffpair is as easy as selecting nets in the schematic and using the "swap nets" tools.

> Pin agnostic routing, ie a MCU or FPGA where it doesn't matter which pin is used

Not really, but you can draw the connections in the board editor and backannotate them into the schematic: https://horizon-eda.readthedocs.io/en/latest/backannotation....

> Incremental part placement, unlike kicad where all the footprints get dumped on the board in a big mess at the start

Yes, there's list showing all currently unplaced packages: https://imgur.com/ZrvRw46

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#22

Post by xellisx »

karotte wrote: post #18
mbrumlow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never done PCB design, but my projects are taking me that direction. Why should I learn Horizon vs Kicad first, or vise versa?

pro Horizon: - library management that makes sense (though is a bit more complex than KiCad's) - clean and modern UI - fast-paced development (if there's a suggestion, that makes sense to me, I'll implement it) pro KiCad: - large library of parts - has been around for a long time, so for every problem you may encounter, there's likely a forum post or so that describes a solution/workaround - larger community

I wish they had git or something built into KiCad, specially to update parts and be able to find libraries, instead having to search for them online and downloading and extracting and adding to two places in the software.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#23

Post by taneq »

karotte wrote: post #21
popped wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it support: Differential pair routing Pin swapping... ie a differential pair where the pins can be reversed Pin agnostic routing, ie a MCU or FPGA where it doesn't matter which pin is used Incremental part placement, unlike kicad where all the footprints get dumped on the board in a big mess at the start These are things that bother me most in kicad (it does have diff pair routing) Thanks - looking forward to ta…

> Differential pair routing Yes, uses KiCad's push&shove router > Pin swapping... ie a differential pair where the pins can be reversed Not really, but swapping P/N in a diffpair is as easy as selecting nets in the schematic and using the "swap nets" tools. > Pin agnostic routing, ie a MCU or FPGA where it doesn't matter which pin is used Not really, but you can draw the connections in the board editor and backannota…

Back-annotation and library management are the two places where KiCad really falls down for me (the user interface is janky but works once you get used to the warts) so this looks really interesting.

How tightly integrated are the schematic editor and layout editor? Are they two separate programs like KiCad or can you eg. delete a component from the schematic and have it automatically removed from the PCB (but without nuking ALL non-schematic components from the PCB).

Definitely gonna give this one a try.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#24

Post by mhh__ »

The PCB EDA space really needs some competition. Kicad is really getting there, it "just" needs some UI improvements (Automation of the Schematic->Netlist->pcbnew flow would be nice) and also some of the big boy features like signal integrity and heat etc.

Altium is probably the only clean PCB experience at the moment, and even that sits at 10% CPU on my machine with an empty schematic and no PCB open. The more esoteric tools like Mentor and Cadence's tools (and presumably Keysight's offerings although I can't get a student license through my university * ) are powerful but quite difficult to use working alone in the sense that schematic capture is quite slow because you need to (if I'm not doing something wrong) source your own library or make your own - not really competing with Kicad as such.

* The student license options these companies have are absolutely insane. You'd think they don't want people to learn to use their software. Altium's site doesn't work with non-american email addresses, Mentor doesn't include any RF/Thermal/Mixed-Signal simulation addons i.e. the only reason to learn to use it over kicad, Cadence took about 2 weeks to respond and ended up publishing a Photo of my student license with my name on their website if you know where to look (Indexed by number)

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#25

Post by nrclark »

karotte wrote: post #8

Author here, ask me anything.

A few questions -

1. Does the schematic editor support multi-page schematics? Kicad's hierarchical-block approach always feels needlessly clunky to me.

2. Does the PCB editor support planes and copper pours?

3. Does the PCB editor have anything to help estimate a line/diffpair's characteristic impedance?

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#26

Post by hokumguru »

mhh__ wrote: post #24

The PCB EDA space really needs some competition. Kicad is really getting there, it "just" needs some UI improvements (Automation of the Schematic->Netlist->pcbnew flow would be nice) and also some of the big boy features like signal integrity and heat etc. Altium is probably the only clean PCB experience at the moment, and even that sits at 10% CPU on my machine with an empty schematic and no PCB open. The more esote…

As an absolute beginner learning how to design PCBs and simple circuits for hobby projects - I have to say while KiCAD is getting there, it really still has a learning-curve of a sheer cliff. The interface and workflow seem arbitrary and unnecessary complex for what should be a relatively straightforward process. I realize this tool is far more powerful than I'll ever need but it really does feel like I'm in way over my head most times. While it "Just" needs some UI improvements, those are non trivial for me.

Electrical engineers are willing to put up with so much more it seems.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#27

Post by unnouinceput »

Downloaded, installed, got repositories, created a test project. Finally open it, new schematic, selected a resistor to put on schema. Damn thing too big, tried to zoom out, failed. Then tried to move it, failed as well. Unintuitive, not in the mood to learn its quirks so I just uninstall it.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#28

Post by Czarcasm »

xellisx wrote: post #22
karotte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pro Horizon: - library management that makes sense (though is a bit more complex than KiCad's) - clean and modern UI - fast-paced development (if there's a suggestion, that makes sense to me, I'll implement it) pro KiCad: - large library of parts - has been around for a long time, so for every problem you may encounter, there's likely a forum post or so that describes a solution/workaround - larger community

I wish they had git or something built into KiCad, specially to update parts and be able to find libraries, instead having to search for them online and downloading and extracting and adding to two places in the software.

This is my biggest gripe with KiCAD. No matter what I do, my libraries end up messy.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#29

Post by madengr »

mhh__ wrote: post #24

The PCB EDA space really needs some competition. Kicad is really getting there, it "just" needs some UI improvements (Automation of the Schematic->Netlist->pcbnew flow would be nice) and also some of the big boy features like signal integrity and heat etc. Altium is probably the only clean PCB experience at the moment, and even that sits at 10% CPU on my machine with an empty schematic and no PCB open. The more esote…

You’ll never get those add-ons in a free package, as it takes institutional knowledge and full-time work to develop it, which cost $$.

Cadence, Keysight, etc. provide the licenses to universities, not individual students, but they are pretty easy to get. Sounds like you need to work the channels through a professor.

Re: Horizon – a free and open source electronic PCB design package

#30

Post by userbinator »

mhh__ wrote: post #24

The PCB EDA space really needs some competition. Kicad is really getting there, it "just" needs some UI improvements (Automation of the Schematic->Netlist->pcbnew flow would be nice) and also some of the big boy features like signal integrity and heat etc. Altium is probably the only clean PCB experience at the moment, and even that sits at 10% CPU on my machine with an empty schematic and no PCB open. The more esote…

You'd think they don't want people to learn to use their software.

I feel like they work on the same principle as Adobe: pirate our software when you're learning, so you get used to it, then pay for it/ask your company to pay for it when you're working. I clearly remember one of the top Google recommended searches for "Altium" was "Altium full crack download"...

Post reply on HN