StripboardCAD app

[alex.s]

Anyone else had a crack at layout making with the new app from Harald at sabrotone.com?

Dowloaded it yesterday morning and had fun trying it out, loving the touch screen tablet approach to layouts and found myself actually preferring it to the software we all know and love.

This one is not free, but at either £6.99 or £7.99 (can't remember exactly how much..!) I'd say it's very reasonably priced and a handy tool.

[Frank_NH]

Looks great.  I was wondering though about using my fingers for positioning the components versus a mouse (I do a lot of CAD stuff in my day job and much prefer a mouse).

[alex.s]

I actually found myself enjoying the mouseless experience, and I don't have tiny fingers. It also has a lock component option for each component, meaning you can make sure certain part will not be moved by accident while you're working on different areas of the layout/circuit.

The exports look great, both in terms of image but also thanks to the BOM that it automatically creates, which is very useful. That said, the component always display their name (ie R1, R2, C1...) and not the value, and the fact you can't name two components with the same name means (unless I'm missing something, which I might well be having only had a bit of time yesterday to try it) you can't create a layout that expressed the values on each component.

Apart from that I've enjoyed its simplicity and effectiveness, I can see myself lounging on the sofa with my iPad drawing up some pot mounted layout while keeping an eye on the footie on TV... :)

[Muadzin]

Apple only? I no longer care.

[negativefx]

"Apple only?..."  You are correct.  Harold spent a lot of time learning iOS to make this, and when he gauged his audience for price, my response was "any price on android, no price on ios"   Not dogging his effort, it looks cool, but as apple only, i'll never get to try it.

Also, hasn't harold always done R1, R2, etc. in his drawings and then listed the bom below?  It's a nice way to keep track when taking inventory/building orders, but when it comes to actual soldering, I prefer the values right on the components in the layout like mark and miro do.  Probably a matter of preference I guess but his app should give you the choice.  Oh, wait, it's apple... the choice is not yours.   ;)

[alex.s]

I actually contacted him about the R1, R2 thing and he got back saying it should be an easy tweak, so hoping it might be implemented!

Had an Android tablet for a couple years, couldn't have been any happier to hand in the few more quids to get myself an iPad, as I found Android dreadful under every department... To each their own I guess! :)

Allegiancies aside, I guess it makes a lot of sense for people unable to work for both platform to develop for iOS for two reasons - on is of course popularity, the other is that with iOS you know what devices peopel will be using, meaning the app won't need to be adapted for lots of different tablets, when compatibility is often an issue because of different performance, resolution, OS versions etc...