Monday, April 21, 2014

CADSTAR Express 15

Express is a set of free PCB design tools limited to 300pins and 50 components.  It has the same functionality of CADSTAR, a PCB design suite from Zuken optimized for small and mid-size design teams.

An interesting new feature of CADSTAR is the CADSTAR Touch App for Android and iOS devices.  It links to the CADSTAR IDE to turn your tablet or smartphone into an input device.  For example, you can pan, view all, and run Macros you have defined in CADSTAR.  The Android version also supports voice commands.  See the video below for a demo.



I have been a user of CADSTAR Schematic since version 13, I find it is a professional quality, low-cost solution.  The yearly maintenance cost is very affordable and entitles you to download the newer versions which are released about once a year.  I receive great support from my distributor, Algozen, who helped organize a local CADSTAR User's Day I attended last week.