Just close your eyes and imagine how much creativity and productivity could be unleashed if basic CAD was as accessible as a document editor.
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i gotta say, my own experience is 100% to the contrary. i designed legit CNC'd parts first with Sketchup, then taught myself Inventor (lucky to work somewhere that had licenses, but near zero mentorship/guidance). then a string of pirated licenses, then Fusion + Eagle.
It’s the “lucky to have free access” followed by “a string of pirated licenses” that I think is both common and where this chain is weak. We need someone to bring in the 2006 iTunes Store to fix the rampant workaround for a lack of a satisfying accessible option.
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i know you've seen the replies already, but Fusion is really impressive and both it and Eagle are virtually or literally free with a ton of online documentation. i would have agreed with you in ~2012, and agreed that HW != SW, but it's remarkably easy to get into today.
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EAGLE needs improvements so badly. Yeah, it’s free. I still keep it in the category of things that might be replaced and thereby unlock a huge amount of productivity.
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but my point would be that once you’re ready to ditch Eagle the cost of Altium prob isn’t the #1 thing holding you back from pursuing hardware. Tho my ulterior motive of trying to get smart people to discard the Bay Area’s SW bias might be influencing that perspective ;) -
It’s not possible to measure how much is lost nor how many are turned away from hardware as a result of the challenges around using the tools
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Being honest, I think even I feel a certain amount of dread about what a pain it is to deal with any/all of the ECAD options, which is a hurdle/setup cost I still face and have to get over if I’m thinking of doing a new project. And I’ve used or written my share of ULPs.
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Also FWIW I think this outlook on Altium is false. I think the cost is still prohibitive even in many professional contexts.
End of conversation
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