Tag Archives: DesignSpark

Layout Complete

There will undoubtedly be a few more changes, but at least everything is on the board, now. The tool tells me that I’ve spent 5812 minutes of editing time to put down 245 components. In other words, I averaged about 24 minutes to put down each component.

layout complete (?)
This is what it looks like now. Compare to the plot from the two blog entries ago.

One of the lovely features of the DesignSpark package is that it will generate a 3d view of the board. It’s not perfect, because not all of the parts have 3d models, and the software has to make estimates.

This really gives me a feel for where things are on the board, so I can make sure that components like connectors and trimpots are accessible.

3d view
Zooming in is handy.
bottom view
I like that I can rotate the board to look at the bottom.

It’s truly amazing to me that I can get a 3d view from free software. The board is still completely virtual, but I feel like it exists, physically.