Proteus Software

[tenaja]

I'm with Daryl on the sim... I've been using the vsm for several years, and love it. The advanced stuff is more for calculating noise in audio ckts and such. Using Isis has cut down on development time a lot, and I can't imagine what Mr. E is complaining about. Their models are very accurate--sometimes MORE accurate than the hardware. (i.e. designed with no batch-specific errata.)

I used Eagle prior to switching to Ares. I switched because I figured it'd be nice to have just one cad package, and Eagle had a few things that really irked me. Well, Eagle fixed those things right when I bought Ares, and I'd have stayed with it had I known more.

When you sim a PIC, you typically don't sim the full ckt--you put in primitives, and stuff like that so it will sim at full speed. Full analog slows it down a LOT, so you end up with two schematics (or one that's a lot bigger and messier, with some excluded from sim and some excluded from pcb) doing it this way. As far as layout goes, Ares isn't quite up to the power of Eagle. They both have annoying quirks, but Eagle is a bit more powerful...although Ares is slowly catching up, and it is nice having just one forum to read. Oh, yeah... Eagle has a LOT more part libraries, too, but they are significantly easier to make in Ares, and a lot easier to edit too.

So, now that I have it, I'm not about to go back to Eagle...but had I known then what I know now I'd have stuck with Eagle. I like its precision and power, but it's harder to learn.

That's my 2c.

[mackrackit]

My mill is a Fireball V90. I replaced the stock bed with 1/2 inch aluminum plate milled flat to match the gantry. I run between 15 and 30 inch per minute depending on the part. Using a 30 degree point I can do 44 pin TQFP parts on half ounce copper.

I do not have any pictures with me.

[Acetronics2]

Hi, Bert

Just my two cents about sims ...

I sometimes use Proteus ... sometimes Multisim 11 ... tried VBB 4.2.x

Works quite fine - not perfect - for all digital work ( Processor simulating ! ), but ALL are really awful when you try to mix analog signals and digital ones ( same with 7400 or 4000 logic for digital ! ).
I can give you numerous files to prove it !!!! ... : Discrete boards work fine for years, sims never could run it, even badly.

Do not talk about close loop circuits nor ...

Also add sims do not take too much into account the config settings of the processors.
So, a sim running project NEVER is a guaranteed " live " running project.

I'd make an exception for Microchip MPSIM ... I consider it a real good tool to simulate PICs ... but not able to take into account any external components ...
Fine to adjust tricky timings, i.e.

Another exception for Flowcode ... ( Ok, it's not BASIC ! ) - limited, but " not so bad "

and the last one for Cypress Psoc Express ( looks to be obsolete and left aside now ...) - that's not Basic nor Pics !!! -

so, I'd say ...

" + 100 with Steve ... " ...


For a PCB design suite ... I Use ULTIMATE V 5.72 ... the glorious ancestor of NI Multisim/Ultiboard.

I think the very best design suite ever sold, even if there are some little bugs from here to there ( once known ... and avoided, everything fine ).

but no more sold : last release was sent in ...1999 !!!

I paid my " Student unlimited " version ... 300 US $ !!!

Alain

[mister_e]

^^ this!

An ideal sim/pcb package, say All-in-one electronic software would have the ability to do the schematic entry, Sim it, then produce the PCB and THIS.. regardless of it's complexity. I think you can do most of it with Proteus package, but the sim ability is way to limited and yeah, if you mix some analogue works in, unless you have a 19,238 core CPU machine, it works sadly when it doesn't crash.

MPSIM, MultiSim, Proteus, Mindi, LTSpice name it, all of them do some decent work, None are perfect, some have better potential, but none satisfy my need or expectation. I understand why using it, it is appealing, "it's sexy on screen", it may save many prototyping hour, can even make your plane/taxi/bus trip shorter. The idea is good, it just need few more years again I guess. In meantime, real parts and a Serial/USB terminal (or LCD), ICD do the job.

[rsocor01]

Bert,

I'm with Steve and Alain on this one. Many years ago I used PSpice a lot when I was in school. I still use it sometimes but only when I need to know the ins and outs of any circuit. It is a lot easier to run a sim to find out some values in the circuit than to calculate currents, voltages, etc. Analog and digital circuits don't mix well in this simulator. So, I prefer the "breadboard simulator". I have many breadboards laying around in my office, so when I want to test a circuit I think it is more reliable to do it this way.

My mill is a Fireball V90. I replaced the stock bed with 1/2 inch aluminum plate milled flat to match the gantry. I run between 15 and 30 inch per minute depending on the part. Using a 30 degree point I can do 44 pin TQFP parts on half ounce copper.

Dave,

I found this cool video about a Fireball V90 demo. How do you trasfer the gerber files to this machine ? Using V-tabs you might be able to make many boards in the same run. It would be cool to see a video of your machine creating PCB boards .

[mackrackit]

Here is a short vid

The finished board can be seen here.
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/cont...USB-SD-LOGGING

I use KiCad for schematics and board layout. I save the board as a DXF so I can bring it into a CAD (Design CAD) to add stuff like mounts or to nest parts together. Then CamBam is used to to make the G code. EMC2 runs the machine.

I am still pretty new to CNC stuff so I have some fine tuning to do, but it seems to work well.

[cncmachineguy]

Hey guys, thanks for the insight! I went ahead and bought the software as for me it seemed the pros outweight the cons. I hope to enjoy the software as much as Darrel does, but only time will tell. The PCB design already seems it will pay for itself.

@Dave, thanks for the info on the V90. I have been thinking about a small mill for some time. That looks like a pretty nice system. BTW, if you want/need any info on CNC machining just ask, I've been in this business for about 18 years now. Happy to lend a hand.

[mackrackit]

Thanks Bert.
The biggest problem so far was getting the bed level with the gantry. Now I think a floating cutting head would be the best way to go. Along with a vacuum table.

[cncmachineguy]

Vac tables are really cool. Just remember a shop vac doesn't really pull any vacuum. I measured it once and it got to maybe 1 inch of mercury.The best is if you cann afford a true vacuum pump Gast brand is really good. next best thing is a vacuum generator. They run from compressed air and will get 29 inches with a good seal. Downside is there is now a great deal of flow.

The clamping force boils down to this: ((vac in inches)/2)*surface area in inches. so for instance: 4x6 card is 24 in^2 with a vac of 29, you get 29/2=14.5*24=348 lbs of force. Sounds like a lot, but keep in mind when milling all the forces are side forces.

but you can quickly see why the shop vac won't work it would have 12 lbs of clamping force!!

[mister_e]

Hey guys, thanks for the insight! I went ahead and bought the software as for me it seemed the pros outweight the cons. I hope to enjoy the software as much as Darrel does, but only time will tell. The PCB design already seems it will pay for itself.

Good, keep user posted here, sure enough there's a ton who also want to hear about it and how you manage the debugging to work with PBP.

Some good advices over there I guess:
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/show...6303#post96303