
Upverter Gets Your Circuits Laid - joeyespo
http://blog.upverter.com/upverter-gets-your-circuits-laid
======
fotbr
A few criticisms. Hopefully you can put them to good use, or at least
understand what some old fuddy-duddys that aren't impressed by "the cloud" and
"social" think. Or have a beer and laugh at the old guy saying "get off my
lawn" - I'm OK with that too.

When you make claims like "the worlds most sophisticated layout tool" you're
making impossible claims. I've yet to see anything that your tool does that
Protel (now Altium) and others weren't doing a decade ago.

I understand different markets, but at $299 / user / month for your
"professional" offering, you're not too far off of Altium Designer's cost.
You're roughly double Eagle's price, and yours is a subscription service,
rather than a pay once and done.

It appears you also have to pay separately for simulation - another cost that
Altium and Eagle do not have.

You make pricing hard to find on your website. I'm looking for pricing, not a
"try upverter now" button - to me that says "get the demo", not "pricing".
Your package names look like something designed picked by someone just out of
college and trying overly hard to be hip, not something meant to convey any
meaning. "Open Source" "Awesome" and "Professional" - really? Why not just
"Free" "Personal" and "Professional"? Conveys what you get with each package
much quicker and more clearly. You have very little about what's included with
each package. For instance, what's a "Team+User" account type vs a "User". How
much simulation time is included with each package, since you make a reference
to paying for only what you use? What's the cost of additional simulation
time?

From your "Professional" registration page: "Welcome, Professional. This is
going to be awesome!" Really? Awesome? I thought "Awesome" was your middle-
tier package. It creates confusion and impressions you may not want.

Too much emphasis on buzzwords. Do you really need to use "cloud" that often?
How about "Awesome!"?

Your "Terms of Use" basically say you're not responsible for the security of
anything. Not something you want when you're trying to entice people into
doing creative work with your service. You say you can end the service
whenever you want with the only notification being via the webpage - Not
something to make businesses shell out $3588 / year. Likewise, you say you're
able to revoke access entirely or in part without notification, and that the
website may be unavailable at times, and that you may, at your discretion,
delete a user's uploaded data.

From a business standpoint, these terms are completely unacceptable - would
you pay $3588 / year with no guarantee that you'd be able to use the service,
or that you'd be able to access your data?

As a hobbyist, are you willing to have all your work and data disappear on a
third party's whim?

From a business customer standpoint, I'd rather pay the extra to Altium, sink
the cost of the software, pay half your yearly cost for Altium's subscription,
and keep my propitiatory data in-house, instead of trusting an unknown 3rd
party's claims to privacy, security, and longevity. Knowing where Protel was a
decade ago - I'll also say that their software does a lot more than yours,
again putting your claims at being the "most sophisticated" in question.

From a hobbyist standpoint, I'm still not comfortable putting things that are
as tedious to reproduce as schematics and board layouts under the control of a
third party. Eagle "Standard" is $169 (individual hobbyist use), and the copy
will be good as long as I have a computer that will run it. That cost just
over two years of paying for your "Awesome" package. Eagle "Light" is $69,
less than one year of your "Awesome" package, and I again have something that
lasts as long as I maintain a computer that can run it. I can buy a new
"Light" package every year and still save money over your service.

~~~
akiselev
Yeah claiming to be the most sophisticated PCB editor is a massive stretch.

Just looking at the last project I did and the features I could not have done
without, do you have differential pair routing? Interactive length tuning?
From-tos? Pin swapping? Integration with some part swapping system for the
manufacturer? Export and then reimport of DSNs for Electra/Specctra? Polygon
pours? Integration with PLMs? Use scripting engine?

As far as working with Altium goes, those features are all pretty basic.

------
mindslight
> _Same time schematic & PCB editing... for the first time ever_

What exactly does this mean? How does this differ from Eagle where schematic
changes are immediately reflected in the rat's nest?

It'll be interesting to see what kind of computational constraints they put on
the inevitable autorouter.

~~~
mercuryrising
Same time schematic & PCB editing... for the first time ever... like in the
world... first. time. ever.... this is a pretty big deal.

In Eagle, you cannot add new parts directly to the PCB (no layout duplication
for panelization). Panelization is about the only place I have ever wanted
that feature, as the abstract schematic is much nicer for connecting nodes.
Although, I guess since I haven't tried it, I could be wrong. I'm not entirely
sure why there is that limitation, but it would be a pretty nice feature.

Couple other points:

Full real-time design rule checking

Eagle does not do real time DRC. Although, as I've yet to really have problems
with a DRC (most PCB milling machines are awesome, and you don't really have
anything to worry about).

A system of automated footprint generators based on the IPC standards

That would be way better if I could supply a PDF from the data sheet, your
software looks at the dimensions and gives me the footprint back.

~~~
mindslight
Yeah, trying to make changes to the circuit via the PCB _is_ annoying in
Eagle. It hasn't been a big issue for me, as the times when I've wanted to do
it, I've wanted to do so much of it that it was worth doing that part of the
layout using scripts (imagine a 4 signal layer PCB with the same functional
unit duplicated 24 times, that wants to be as small as possible. adjust
dimensions, autoplace, autoroute, evaluate, repeat). But I can see that kind
of feature being quite handy when you have just a few copies to make.

Eh? Don't know why you'd ever not worry about DRC. If the PCB fab is that
good, make your features smaller :P. You also want to always make sure that
you're not violating your electrically-significant constraints.

And yeah, footprints are quite annoying (especially when starting out) and one
of the things that I think a widely-shared online approach like Upverter will
actually succeed in fixing for the common cases.

~~~
mercuryrising
Did you do the scripting in Eagle? I usually just clone things a schematic
building block, although that means that I have to redo the layout for each
one.

I haven't made any boards for manufacturing, only one off boards. I like to
keep things spaced out so if I need to get in and cut/jumper I can. Soon
though, I'll make a board for manufacture. Then the DRC come into play.

I dislike the uncertainty in the footprints. I just sent a board out with a
footprint I made, and I didn't have the parts yet to see if they would fit the
dimensions. It's all a big guessing game. The Sparkfun library is pretty
awesome in that regard (sharing files). I like how they say 'Production
tested', keeping quality up when tons of people on Upverter are making
footprints may be hard, although if you have a hundred or so 'tested'
footprints you might be in the clear.

~~~
mindslight
I started off writing ULPs, but eventually moved on to using a general purpose
language to generate a ULP that consisted of the actions to be performed. And
to get the data out, the registered version has an option to export to such a
script, too (and you can write a ULP to do the same exporting in the
unregistered version).

I've done mostly prototype work, but rework isn't much harder with tighter
design rules. Also keep in mind a good amount of possible
cutting/jumpering/airwiring can be avoided with the right use of infinite and
zero ohm resistors at layout time. I unfortunately haven't touched embedded
design in a while - moved on to software for more ambitious goals;
unfortunately, das blinkenlights aren't so applicable to the problems of the
world that are important to me.

------
ChuckMcM
Sigh, this is so cool and so disrupting to the eda vendor community I know it
won't last. Definitely going to see about designing a few projects with it.
Great job

------
DanBC
I really like the Circuit of the week. That's a neat idea.

> Same time schematic & PCB editing...

If this means you tweak the schematic and the PCB updates at the same time -
that's good. I think. How well does it cope with 4 / 8 / 12 layer boards? Or
are those not realistic use cases?

> PCB Editing! Woot!

Why would someone want to edit the PCB? Is it to make things suitable for
production? ("This bulky component is too close to the edge and interferes
with production machine loading. Let's move it over there a bit"?) Or are
there other uses?

~~~
tlb
Connectors need to be placed to match the enclosure

Components are available in a variety of packages, and supply problems
sometimes require a last-minute change.

Thermal or EMI or noise problems require moving traces away from each other.

------
zio99
Congrats to Zak and the team at Upverter!

------
mamatta
this is a big deal. from designing to manufacturing, this will help get
prototypes off the ground much faster

------
mmorey
Where can I find pricing information?

~~~
mmorey
Found membership pricing <http://upverter.com/pricing/>

~~~
mercuryrising
I wonder if they delete your files if you stop paying?

~~~
rcfox
Ryan from Upverter here:

If you stop paying, the designs will remain intact, stay private and you will
be able to export them freely. If you want to keep editing the designs, they
will have to be made public at that point. (Or you can start paying again. ;))

~~~
fotbr
That's not what your terms of service says. It says you may, at your
discretion, delete data.

------
kbruneel
Congrats to upverter with their new release, together we can kick some kicad
and eagle butt :) Make sure to also try out circuits.io

------
nickevans
Nice work Zak! I've been waitin for something like this for years.

------
jfolkins
Circuits need love too.

------
mrjbq7
Really, "Gets Your Circuits Laid"?

It's a shame too many of these product announcements subtly discriminate
against women, and frequently minorities.

Why not a more descriptive title such as "Upverter Releases Sophisticated
Circuit Layout Tool"?

Congratulations to the Upverter team, but try to be more sensitive next time.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Why is "getting laid" discriminatory against women?

~~~
mrjbq7
I could say something witty about women being treated as sexual objects more
frequently than men, or reference the studies pointing out that sexualized
environments encourage sexual harassment and discrimination to take place
(something biased against women more than men), talk about how sexual innuendo
is commonly a way for men to bond over their shared attraction to women, or
any number of complaints pointed out repeatedly over the years by women in
this industry.

But...

I don't think Upverter was trying to discriminate, nor do I think anyone
should take real offense at their title. I just think that little jokes like
this often recurring does have a negative impact on our ability to attract
women to (and have them thrive in) technical roles.

~~~
gte910h
Then you should post these links, and point out these things. Don't just wave
your hands and posit this sort of thing is against women without evidence for
that point. Convert people to this cause if it's true, or silence your
allusions if it's not.

~~~
rachelbythebay
Let's say if every time you saw someone talking about a particular product or
service, they were wearing something that only 12 year olds wear. Let's
further say you are 15 years old, and you're trying to distinguish yourself
from the 12 year olds, since "they're just kids" and you are not. You're
trying to not be associated with the "kids" schtick.

Given that, would you use that product and service if only people who dress
like 12 year olds use it? I suspect you might avoid it, assuming you were the
sort of person who cared about that sort of perception.

Or here, let me try it in terms of variables:

A: The people who are always talking about B

B: The product, service, or career they're talking about

C: The group they appear to be part of

D: You.

E: People who might look at you (D) and think you are a (C) because of your
association with (B), because of the presentations put forth by (A).

If you don't make any of these connections, you may not be affected by this.
However, it could still affect those who _do_ make those connections.

~~~
gte910h
I'm actually interested in the data driven argument the poster I responded to,
particularly using those studies he mentioned, not a logical debate on the
topic. If you're not using real data, people on the other side often just hand
wave away your objections and no one convinces anyone.

Induction is much more likely to convert the person you're talking to than
deduction, as it gets around values to a degree.

~~~
rachelbythebay
Okay, in specific terms, for only myself, then:

When I saw this headline, it elicited a minor "groan" from me, since it
reminded me of some less-desirable elements within the greater community. It,
on some level, reminds me that sometimes I wish I was doing something else.

This plugs into what I said before.

