Traxmaker
I started designing circuit boards in the 20th century with a DOS program called Easytrax, it worked fine on limited hardware, most stuff could be done without a mouse. It was great.
The problem was that the Gerber files Easytrax outputs (the files needed by the circuit board maker) were RS-274D. Most places (even in the 20th century) required RS-274X files. I can't remember the details of the differences between RS-274D and RS-274X but at some point I had to change software to be able to use a different circuit board vendor.
I found that the windows version of Easytrax was a program called Traxmaker. (to be completely accurate, Autotrax was the next version, see
https://airborn.com.au/layout/autotrax.html
Traxmaker was available as a part of the Circuitmaker 2000 software package. Eventually in the 21st century Traxmaker was abandoned by the vendor and replaced. At one time there was a Yahoo group for Circuitmaker and Traxmaker, also the software was posted to multiple sites. As is often the case with the internet recently I was only able to find this site:
https://winworldpc.com/product/circuitmaker/2000
Important info on Traxmaker from oshpark here
https://docs.oshpark.com/design-tools/traxmaker-2000/
It's necessary to massage the Traxmaker files using Gerbv before the circuit board makers can use them.
https://docs.oshpark.com/design-tools/gerbv/fix-drill-format/
Here is an example board both as designed and as made:
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| screen shot of Traxmaker design program |
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| aluminum circuit board (front panel) |
I also use the program Gerbv to check my files before sending them to the board maker
info on Gerbv from Oshpark here: https://docs.oshpark.com/design-tools/gerbv/
Oshpark is an excellent vendor of boards, especially small ones - they have the characteristic purple soldermask and the gold plating.
Why not use something open source like KiCAD ? Maybe it's just using Easytrax all those years or maybe it's the somewhat daunting 1 gigabyte download.
(BTW there is a simple hack to allow Easytrax .pcb files to be used with Traxmaker:
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| from the airborne site - this works with Traxmaker, too |
there are a couple of problems with the Easytrax file conversion hack with Traxmaker:
=> need to edit the pads to change the hole size from 0
=> SMT parts may get converted to through hole
I guess I'm just tired of learning another new program from scratch.
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm