Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?

Discussion:

josh_eeg

2010-04-07 13:46:54 UTC

Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?

I am looking to use the autorouters as a sugjestion to the way I want to route the board and to acsept some more trivial routing.

The one that interested me the most was the Topological Autorouter

Topological Autorouter
http://www.wand.net.nz/~amb33/toporouter/

I emailed the author aparently the files are in GEDA but like other geda things and unlike kicad not quite documented. If anyone can show how to route my board using this I think that would be a great trial.

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lynchaj

2010-04-07 16:27:30 UTC

Permalink

Post by josh_eeg
Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route their kicad design?
I am looking to use the autorouters as a sugjestion to the way I want to route the board and to acsept some more trivial routing.
The one that interested me the most was the Topological Autorouter
Topological Autorouter
http://www.wand.net.nz/~amb33/toporouter/
I emailed the author aparently the files are in GEDA but like other geda things and unlike kicad not quite documented. If anyone can show how to route my board using this I think that would be a great trial.

Hi! I like the idea of the gEDA and/or Topological autorouter integration into KiCAD. Another possibility exists as well; the MUCS-PCB autorouter is GPL and could be integrated into KiCAD directly. It is license compatible and may be an improvement over the existing KiCAD autorouter.

http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/apt/projects/tools/mucs-pcb/

Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter. I believe it would be a wise contingency for KiCAD developers to consider the alternatives to FreeRouting.net if it were to disappear suddenly some day. It doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Is there a script to convert KiCAD board files to/from MUCS-PCB?

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

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dickelbeck

2010-04-08 12:50:24 UTC

Permalink

Post by lynchaj
Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter.
Andrew Lynch

Can you provide any evidence to support this opinion?

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Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
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juliorz

2010-04-08 15:06:48 UTC

Permalink

What is wrong with using the auto router included in KICAD? (that is what
I use)

_____

From: kicad-users-***@public.gmane.org [mailto:kicad-users-***@public.gmane.org] On
Behalf Of dickelbeck
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 8:50 AM
To: kicad-users-***@public.gmane.org
Subject: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route
their kicad design?

Post by lynchaj
Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the

impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no
longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter.

Post by lynchaj
Andrew Lynch

Can you provide any evidence to support this opinion?

Robert

2010-04-08 15:28:49 UTC

Permalink

One thing the router on gEDA allows that kicad doesn't is true arcs on
the copper layers. I *think* Toporouter (which is what the OP wants to
play with) also uses true arcs. I can't think of any reason why this
would be important on a standard PCB, but on flexis true arcs are
preferable.

I guess all that's needed in Kicad is a gEDA PCB netlist plugin. I
asked about this myself a while back but got no responses, so presumably
there isn't one already written.

As for the original post, when I saw it I did check my copy of PCB to
see if it made any mention of Toporouter. I couldn't find any
reference to it in the menus, so I guess to use it the OP will have to
roll his own copy of PCB. Sounds like a lot of work to me...

Regards,

Robert.

Post by juliorz
What is wrong with using the auto router included in KICAD? (that is what
I use)
_____
Behalf Of dickelbeck
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 8:50 AM
Subject: [kicad-users] Re: Has anyone used the autorouters in GEDA to route
their kicad design?

Post by lynchaj
Although FreeRouting.net works great, it is not open source and I get the

impression from its author he has moved on to other projects and is no
longer doing major development on the FreeRouting.net autorouter.

Post by lynchaj
Andrew Lynch

Can you provide any evidence to support this opinion?
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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Alain Mouette

2010-04-08 16:50:07 UTC

Permalink

Autorouter is the top most misunderstood piece of software. Most peole
just think that it will make the boar for them. That is not the way to go.

Freeroute is great for complex boards, but it usualy makes a mess of the
conections and you will not be able to change much afterwards.

The internal router o Kicad is good and very effective for
smaler/simpler boards. It doesn't generate such complex traces, but it
easyer to work on the board aftewards.

I personaly have developped a very interesting technique: I run
repeatedly an autorouter just to evaluate my placement, then I discard
and try a better placement. This is very effective...

Alain

Post by juliorz
What is wrong with using the auto router included in KICAD? (that is
what I use)

James

2010-04-09 20:44:24 UTC

Permalink

Post by Alain Mouette
Autorouter is the top most misunderstood piece of software. Most peole
just think that it will make the boar for them. That is not the way to go.
Freeroute is great for complex boards, but it usualy makes a mess of the
conections and you will not be able to change much afterwards.
The internal router o Kicad is good and very effective for
smaler/simpler boards. It doesn't generate such complex traces, but it
easyer to work on the board aftewards.
I personaly have developped a very interesting technique: I run
repeatedly an autorouter just to evaluate my placement, then I discard
and try a better placement. This is very effective...
Alain

I've never had much luck with autorouters, every time I've tried to use one it just makes a huge mess of the boards, I can do a much nicer layout manually. It would be nice to have the option to click on a single net or two points on a net and have them autoroute, but the autorouters I've tried always attempt to route an entire net or the entire board. Having played with them, I can spot all sorts of commercial PCBs that were autorouted, and it's easy to see the difference between grid and ripup routers.

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Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit http://www.kicadlib.org for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
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