DipTrace Forum

Hello Diptrace community,

I'm a longtime (~15 years) user of Eagle and am considering updating my company's ECAD software. Eagle's new "rental" structure under AutoDesk is unappealing, so I'm weighing my options between Diptrace, Solidworks PCB, and Altium Designer. I've spent about 16 hours watching videos and reading forums like this one, but some basic usability issues are not yet clear, so here I humbly ask:

1. My company assigns its own part numbers and descriptions to all components. How can I tie this information into Diptrace so that when I generate a BOM that information is shown?

2. Electrical circuit design flow often means that, for example, I know a need a resistor here, but I don't yet know what wattage or resistance value. How does Diptrace handle this uncertainty?

"...My company assigns its own part numbers and descriptions to all components. How can I tie this information into Diptrace so that when I generate a BOM that information is shown?..."
You can create "Additional Fields" for each component (adding more fields to an entire library is also possible), which can be recalled by the BOM tool (Schematic Editor: Objects > Bill of Materials...). As far as I know, tying an external database to a library is not possible in the present version of DipTrace. "...Electrical circuit design flow often means that, for example, I know a need a resistor here, but I don't yet know what wattage or resistance value. How does Diptrace handle this uncertainty?..."
You can change any existing component by right-clicking on it and selecting Replace Part... in the pop-up menu to bring up the Replace Part dialog window... Here's a favorable review that might help you decide whether or not DipTrace is right for your company - https://predictabledesigns.com/pcb-desi ... e-is-best/

Hi Tom,

Excellent reply, thank you. I actually found Diptrace via that review you linked to, hadn't heard of it before that. It's surprising how similar all the various ECAD packages are, with such a huge swing in price. And everyone claims theirs is the best, so distilling fact from sales mumbo is quite the chore. Again, thanks for your response.