What software to draw a layout?

[Lonely Raven]

I'm looking to draw some layouts for a couple amps, both to archive them (because layouts might not be available) and to help me understand tube amps better.

What software do you guys recommend that's relatively easy to get into, and will allow me to do everything by measurements? e.g. if I have a circuit board that 13 X 3 and I wanted to put turrets every 1/4" it would make it easy to draw up something like that.

Thanks!

[KT66]

As far as ease of use and end result, Microsoft Visio is hands down the best tool for doing layouts. It's kind of expensive, but you can download the free trial from Microsoft that you can use for 60 days - if you are just need to do a couple of layouts then that should suffice, but if you need to use it long term then it is worth the price to buy it. I found my copy of Visio 2007 on Ebay for around $50. A lot of great layouts have been posted to this forum using this software, including all of the awesome ODSs that Tony posted in the Dumble files section. Somewhere in the D files, if you do a search you will find a thread about visio where parts libraries have been posted.

Here's a layout for my version of the Jimmy Page HiWatt that is on my drawing board that will give you an idea of how nice Visio layouts can look :

[Lonely Raven]

That looks spectacular! I have viso at work, but I never really learned to use it. I'll have to read up on that D-thread you mentioned and find the libraries.

Thanks for a start...I'll see if I can make this work.

[KT66]

Here's the thread I was talking about : https://tubeamparchive.com/viewtopic.ph ... ight=visio . The "patmedia" link at the top is dead, but there is more info down the thread a bit.

[Lonely Raven]

Cool thanks! I had just found that and one other with shape links!

[paulster]

Visio is great for layouts, no doubt.

I like CorelDraw though because, although it doesn't do the pretty layouts as well, it's a 'proper' CAD package which means I can use it for CAD/CAM as well.

I do my board layouts in it, which gives me the board cutting and drilling templates, and the drill templates transfer over to the chassis drawing, so when I produce a DXF extract I can get them laser-cut and folded, and guarantee that the boards will fit perfectly.

And I design my panel layouts similarly, so when they are cut and etched they will line up perfectly with the holes on the chassis.

It's great to know that everything is going to fit and be able to plan your cable routes and even anchor points before a piece of metal has been folded.

It's a great end-to-end solution if you want to get into that whole side of things, but if you're only wanting to go as far as layouts then I'd probably still go for Visio.