Has anyone figured out a way to go back from the Eagle 5.x versions and open files in 4.1x? I have a new project that I started on in 5 and then realized the board was going to be larger than the minimum allowed.
So I tried to open it in version 4 (which I have a license for) and I wasn’t able to open it.
I REALLY do not want to redraw this whole design in 4.
I don’t think projects saved with a later version of EAGLE will work with previous edition’s without it telling
you to to download the latest… (have you E-Mailed CadSoft for a quote for the price of a license update?)
Yeah, I’ve noticed this as well. Is there any way to save-as version 4? I suspect not. It’s kind of a f*ck-you from CADSoft. Anyone who bought a version 4 product is getting totally pushed into an upgrade purchase.
It’s the same with most CAD software, including the Pulsonix software I use. It can export an EDIF file which could be massaged and imported into a previous version. It should be possible to do that with Eagle using a ULP, but it would be a lot of work. There are companies that make a living converting EDIF files from one package to another.
Leon.
Philba:
Yeah, I’ve noticed this as well. Is there any way to save-as version 4? I suspect not. It’s kind of a f*ck-you from CADSoft. Anyone who bought a version 4 product is getting totally pushed into an upgrade purchase.
Yeah, exactly. I have already received a quote from CADSoft for the upgrade and it’s the same price as if I was to just outright buy the new version. No deal for us loyal users that have bought before :?
Thats odd. Last upgrade pricing I got was a substantial savings.
I'm with you on that one. IIRC, the upgrade from 4.16R2theatrus:
Thats odd. Last upgrade pricing I got was a substantial savings.
to 5.0, both standard version, was under $150 for all
three modules.
Perhaps it depends upon where you’re starting from?
So far EAGLE has been much less $$ maintenance
than, say, MSWindows, MSOffice, or those monthly hp
Inkjet cartridge buys!
I don’t understand why anyone has to pay to upgrade Eagle. As far as I can tell, there were no major feature additions or performance improvements between 4.16 and 5.3.0. Just bug fixes. And some additional, user-created, libraries.
I was seriously considering buying the professional license for Eagle, but I might look into drinking Leon Heller’s Kool-Aid and buy Easy-PC (~$500) and perhaps someday Pulsonix (~$5000).
macegr:
I don’t understand why anyone has to pay to upgrade Eagle. As far as I can tell, there were no major feature additions or performance improvements between 4.16 and 5.3.0. Just bug fixes. And some additional, user-created, libraries.I was seriously considering buying the professional license for Eagle, but I might look into drinking Leon Heller’s Kool-Aid and buy Easy-PC (~$500) and perhaps someday Pulsonix (~$5000).
Personally, I found Eagle 5 a major UI overhaul from 4. Call it a bug fix release if you want, but its usability improvements are very nice (editable info boxes, drawing engine is way less glitchy, etc etc). In the end, I much prefer it. Its received a thorough polishing throughout. Its also a tool I’m used to. Eagle hasn’t become a Phoenix and reinvent its self as it would alienate a lot of their customers. I think their strategy of slow gradual improvements is good. How much has software like Photoshop changed anyway? A few new tools in X, some new color models in Y, raw camera support in Z, dockable toolbars in W. Its still nearly the same animal.
I’ve found Altium to be a nicer design tool, but at 10+x the price, 10x the bloat (look at its memory footprint :-/), 10x the licensing headaches (network licensing is one of the things which seems to break here), its core feature set is really not much different (it does more, somewhat, but tries to be too much of a swiss army knife). Yes, interactive auto routing is nifty. Being able to compute net length is nice. Helpful hints for balanced lines can save time. Zooming in on traces and having their name plotted on it is awesome (are you listening Cadsoft?). But its all eye candy and doesn’t change the fact that its a vector drawing program at heart. Something which Eagle also excels at. At a fraction of the price for most users.
I am also interested in KiCad. I don’t like its schematic to board model personally. Eagle has automatic back/forward annotation, KiCad has schematic → package assignment → PCB layout model. Extra step, more work, less happy prototypes.
But in the end, pick your poison. You can even draw Gerbers manually in some software packages if you’re a no-frills kinda person.
bigglez:
I'm with you on that one. IIRC, the upgrade from 4.16R2theatrus:
Thats odd. Last upgrade pricing I got was a substantial savings.to 5.0, both standard version, was under $150 for all
three modules.
Perhaps it depends upon where you’re starting from?
So far EAGLE has been much less $$ maintenance
than, say, MSWindows, MSOffice, or those monthly hp
Inkjet cartridge buys!
I do most of my printing in fast draft mode - it’s very fast and saves a lot of ink.
Leon
macegr:
I don’t understand why anyone has to pay to upgrade Eagle. As far as I can tell, there were no major feature additions or performance improvements between 4.16 and 5.3.0. Just bug fixes
Pretty much standard for most commercial CAD software… If they know big companies use their software, they
will charge what they want for it…
(following that, i don’t think you should have to pay to upgrade the hobby version as compared to the more
expensive options it’s severely reduced in features)
Sadly, the pricing structure for technical software is often completely bonkers from the POV of a hobbiest.
Here in New Zealand, a full academic copy of Altium Designer will run you $99 per year. It’s absolutely full, with no restrictions (except you probably can’t sell anything you produce with it, but that’s a standard academic restriction). Once you’re no longer a student, BANG, it’s 12 grand. There’s no intermediate step.
MATLAB and Mathematica are similar, with dirt cheap academic copies and then a massive awe-inspiring step up to the commercial license, often with bizarre restrictions on how you can use the software too.
mkissin:
“a full academic copy of Altium Designer will run you $99 per year. It’s absolutely full, with no restrictions (except you probably can’t sell anything you produce with it, but that’s a standard academic restriction). Once you’re no longer a student, BANG, it’s 12 grand. There’s no intermediate step”
Open Source Software FTW! :lol:
That is major flame-bait material, so I’ll put on my flame retardant suit before I state this but…
I don’t feel there is any OSS that comes remotely close to Mathematica. The scale and ability it has is truely impressive. MATLAB has Octave, of course, but you miss all of the addons like Simulink, which is where MATLAB really gets its value from.
The electronics offerings are better, and I suppose it comes down to what you get used to, but Altium Designer is a really very nice package to work with. I’ll admit that I haven’t used any OSS schematic or PCB software for any appreciable time though, so I have nothing to compare to.
Oddly enough, the SPICE offerings are the one place where the free/OSS is actually vastly ahead of the paid software. The new Cadence SPICE package is truly terrible. I installed it and ended up having to format my PC to get rid of it. It was…apocalyptic. LTSpice is free, unlimited and has only one drawback; no native IGBT model. The drawback of the free SPICE packages is the lack of models that come packaged, but most manufacturers are good about supplying free models, so that issue deals with itself.
Your mileage may vary 
mkissin:
“i don’t feel there is any OSS that comes remotely close to Mathematica”
Nope but there should be… :lol: (of course there won’t because of copyright and stuff)
I’ve tried quite alot of PCB OSS software before settling down, with commercial stuff.
Some of the proper OSS downloads i’ve tried have had annoying bugs in, (on my PC),
that have prevented me from using them for any lengh of time… 
But the free SPICE packages from various manufacturers are great, brilliant bits of kit… 
Hopefully someone will come up with a great, all-round piece of OSS…
So the answer to my question must be “No”. :?
I guess I need to go back to Cadsoft and make sure they had me on record as a previous license holder. Maybe that is why I got stiffed on the upgrade quote.
I just wanted to follow this up. I went back to CadSoft and they came back a second time with a $55 upgrade price, opposed to the full price. I’m not sure if they had me down as a previous license holder or not, but the second price was much more attractive. I went for it and now I can work on my previous projects in the larger board area.
Oh how it feels to have some stretch-out room
Sweet! I recall off hand that going from 4.16R2 to 5.0rpcelectronics:
I went back to CadSoft and they came back a second time with a $55 upgrade price, opposed to the full price. I’m not sure if they had me down as a previous license holder or not, but the second price was much more attractive. I went for it and now I can work on my previous projects in the larger board area.
cost me about $140.
rpcelectronics:
Oh how it feels to have some stretch-out room
Yep, been there, done that. Now I’m ready to bust out
of the ‘double Eurocard’ limit to do a couple of bigger PCBs.
I think I have to fork over about $495 + tax this time , though…