Half price Circuit Studio

[Dubbie]

I suspect they have found that $500 is what the market will pay. I bet the sales dried up to just above zero when they went back up to 1K

I know that $500 was the most I was willing to pay.

[onesixright]

I know that $500 was the most I was willing to pay.

+1

[Simon]

Why does CS not support Allium binary files?

Because Altium admit know knowledge of CS while farnell trumpet about how it is basically Altium. Even library files that you can download from altium are not made available in CS format even though they support competitor formats but then it's the same anyway but it's like again they won't admit to CS.

[jmarkwolf]

I'm happy with Circuit Studio and looking forward to the updates.

 

Me too.

I've been using Protel/Altium since the mid 90's, but never did use the FPGA tools, simulator, nor the embedded development tools.

I am happy that Circuit Studio came along so I can afford a reasonable facsimile of Altium for retirement.

[Harvs]

I'm happy with Circuit Studio and looking forward to the updates.

 

Me too.

I've been using Protel/Altium since the mid 90's, but never did use the FPGA tools, simulator, nor the embedded development tools.

I am happy that Circuit Studio came along so I can afford a reasonable facsimile of Altium for retirement.

Likewise.  There's lot of things that drove me nuts at first until I found a work around (i.e. came up with some sort of hack.)  However the alternative was $10k AUD out of my own pocket for AD, or learn another tool from scratch (but most of my customers wanted Altium files anyway.)

So is the pain work $10k AUD?  In my case, absolutely.

[GlowingGhoul]

Precisely. An excellent tool for the money.

Hopefully Altium is smart enough to realize that supporting this properly for the semi-professional and hobbyist market will have a long term "halo" effect on commercial sales of Altium. If they'd move support back in house for instance, I'd say at $499 this could become the standard for serious hobbyists. Support and polish is where they can really differentiate from the open source competition in this area.

Tell them JamesH. It would be too easy for a non-long term thinker to let Circuit Studio die on the vine because they're only looking at the sales figures and profit of this product in isolation. No doubt this will end up in the hands of people who will ultimately be influencers in companies they work, or will work for in the future. Consider it a marketing tool.

[Simon]

Hopefully, so far they practically deny it's existance and any search for circuit studio just points you back to element14

[DIPLover]

Finally received my licence today, took them a week.

I still had days left on the trial so nothing was lost but when I inquired about the delay last week, Newark told me they had a backlog due to strong demand during the sale. Hopefully, more users will help CS get the love it deserves from the developers.

Hopefully, so far they practically deny it's existance and any search for circuit studio just points you back to element14

How many times in the same thread must you make the same point Simon?

[Simon]

maybe as many times as they bang on about how it is a version of Altium Designer, I mean if altium is as buggy as CS then I'd never buy it.

[Harvs]

I mean if altium is as buggy as CS then I'd never buy it.

No it's not as buggy.  But either way it all comes down to options, and there aren't a lot of good alternatives in either CS or AD's price bracket.

[Simon]

So the stripping down of AD to CS has created issues I get numerous memory address access violations.

[Harvs]

So the stripping down of AD to CS has created issues I get numerous memory address access violations.

It's not "just" a stripped down version.  People are commonly comparing it to AD17, the current release of AD. But when you dig around in the back end and look at how some of the features are implemented, my guess is CS is built off Altium Designer 09 or similar.  Some of the missing features aren't just Altium removing them from AD, but are a result of them using an older AD codebase.

[DerekG]

.... in my experience I found that "error dialogs" could happen from around several times a day to maybe several times a week depending on usage type and intensity.

I've actually used Altium (Protel in the early days) since 1988, but for these last 2 years I've swapped over to DipTrace (which I find more productive for the boards I am designing - normally 80 to 200 components with 500 to 1000 pads).

You can reduce the errors that Altium throws up by ensuring you run an Intel processor (as specifically recommended by Altium) over an AMD, making sure you have plenty of RAM (ie 8GB) & have a good video card (with 1GB or 2GB of memory) & up to date drivers for it.

If you do all of the above & don't have too many other programs running alongside Altium, you should find it to be very stable.

[Simon]

.... in my experience I found that "error dialogs" could happen from around several times a day to maybe several times a week depending on usage type and intensity.

I've actually used Altium (Protel in the early days) since 1988, but for these last 2 years I've swapped over to DipTrace (which I find more productive for the boards I am designing - normally 80 to 200 components with 500 to 1000 pads).

You can reduce the errors that Altium throws up by ensuring you run an Intel processor (as specifically recommended by Altium) over an AMD, making sure you have plenty of RAM (ie 8GB) & have a good video card (with 1GB or 2GB of memory) & up to date drivers for it.

If you do all of the above & don't have too many other programs running alongside Altium, you should find it to be very stable.

Latest intel i7 processor and 16GB of RAM, but I am running on intel HD graphics so maybe it objects to internal graphics cards on laptops. My PC is AMD with an independant graphics card so not sure which would work out best

[Joel_l]

So , what's happening here??

Hi all,

.........
CircuitStudio is not dead (as suggested in this thread) - we are working hard on 2 updates: a small one due soon and a larger one near year end.
.........

Best regards,

James Harriman
Altium

[onesixright]

So , what's happening here??

Hi all,

.........
CircuitStudio is not dead (as suggested in this thread) - we are working hard on 2 updates: a small one due soon and a larger one near year end.
.........

Best regards,

James Harriman
Altium

Would also like to know! I thought they were working on 2.0 ? But its pretty silent ...

[Simon]

I would say the whole thing has gone dead because Altium have bigger fish to fry or at least so they think in their unstoppable quest for profit whilst failing to understand their users. I have had circuit studio for nearly a year now and have seen no update. The only reason as suggested by others why Altium seem to have circuit studio after the massive failure of whatever that stupid cloud-based online thing was is to draw customers into the Altium "family". Yes yuck. They think that you are going to believe that having bought a product for a mere £800 you are in a family and that you are going to take up a product that now costs £7500. I was offered an introductory discount of 30% putting it at just over £4800 or rather almost what it used to cost just a couple of years ago. So the price of Altium designer has gone up and they are producing circuit studio to try and draw people in. No wonder Farnell has such minimal support for circuit studio and no wonder Altium do not really support circuit studio in real terms. They don't expect you to stick with circuit studio it is merely a sales tool for which the customer pays.

Altium see circuit studio as a way of locking people into their product. It's not particularly stable or refined and they don't have any incentive to make it much better because after eight months of owning it they try and convince you to jump to Altium designer. You are offered the product on the premise that it comes from the great Altium and by the time you have locked yourself into using it to make designs and have wasted time learning it and creating libraries for it you realise it's not so brilliant after all and if you do want that Altium greatness you have to spend up to 8 times more.

I was contacted by telephone by somebody wanting to make me this offer despite the fact they had only just emailed me. I expressed my views and they assured me that once you are in the Altium family it's all wonderful and apparently Altium are working on an even more expensive product which I'm supposed to be excited about despite the fact I can't even afford it mid range product. So yes if you think you have been looked after after spending £800 then think again. Circuit studio is basically a small discount for Altium designer which they will probably sell to you for a discounted price anyway regardless of whether or not you are in their so-called family.

I was told that an update to Altium is due early this year so we shall see. I am not waging that I will see this update before my renewal is due and perhaps I should think again about the renewal and lock out and what I have. It does the job, it's not terrible but it could be a damn sight better. And it could actually perform like it is running on the machine that it is. As I pointed out to the Farnell support guy who is the closest I can get to Altium I can quite literally and I did go and make a cup of tea in the time it took to open the setup panel for the Bom export. I could have equally gone and made myself a 2nd cup of tea in the time it took to generate that Excel file despite the fact all of the contents of that file are already displayed in the setup panel. Circuit studio is of the lowest quality of coding if it takes this long to carry out such basic tasks.

Despite the fact I have mentioned it to a number of people and every one of those who have contacted me from Altium no one can yet tell me what I gain by getting Altium designer as opposed to circuit studio note there is not Altium the name of circuit studio I wonder why? Because as fast as you buy it they deny all knowledge of its existence having sold it to you on the premise that it is Altium greatness.

They do do introductory offers for new companies that you are still having to pay thousands of pounds for the software and within three years at most you will have to pay the rest. Once again the guy could not tell me what I was going to gain from buying Altium designer. I guess Altium is capitalism at its best money for old rope.

[DerekG]

I would say the whole thing has gone dead because Altium have bigger fish to fry or at least so they think in their unstoppable quest for profit whilst failing to understand their users.

Yes, Altium's spin to their shareholders resulted in a 20% rise in their share price yesterday:

https://www.moneymorning.com.au/20180220/altium-share-price-rose-20-today-asxu.html

Altium has a whole department that does nothing but prepare professional presentations for the ASX, existing & potential shareholders & to potential users of their software offerings.

And this department does a really good job of it (based on how their share price has risen since 2009 & the increase in software users since 2000).

I think it would be fair to say that Altium put much more effort into their marketing efforts (to shareholders & users alike) than any other PCB CAD company on earth.

.................. shame that the same effort does not go into Altium Designer itself.

Simon, I know that you were using an earlier version DipTrace before Circuit Studio.

Their latest Ver 3.2 has come a long way since Ver 2.4

I've made the move from AD to DipTrace & I'm very happy. Have you tried their current version?

[Joel_l]

Hmm, just went and took a look, I'll have to load it and give it a try. Would be great if they extended the Eagle discount to CS as well.

<I've made the move from AD to DipTrace & I'm very happy. Have you tried their current version?>

[DerekG]

I'm not sure if you meant DipTrace, but if you were, yes there is a special running for current EAGLE users:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/diptrace/diptrace-special-offer-for-eagle-users/

(On the quiet .............. you don't need to list your EAGLE licence number to qualify .............. sssssssh)

[bandgap]

(On the quiet .............. you don't need to list your EAGLE licence number to qualify .............. sssssssh)

And... the special offer specifically says Eagle subscription users. So.. if it bothers your conscience you could just pay for 1 month of Eagle standard ($15), take advantage of the DipTrace deal, and then cancel your Eagle subscription. 

-Clayton

[plazma]

Is Diptrace routing as good as CS? Push&shove etc.

[bandgap]

Is Diptrace routing as good as CS? Push&shove etc.

No push & shove yet, but they are currently working on it and it has been confirmed to be coming this spring:
https://diptrace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11930

[Joel_l]

So I just got a little bit of time on the DipTrace demo. My first impressions are that it feels like older software ( not a bad thing ) but it all seems to work, schematic to PCB integration and auto router. Definitely going to put more time into the demo. Other notices, website support ( hope they are responsive ), A PDF tutorial, not sure how complete it is on all the features but at least there is one.

[onesixright]

@JamesH-AltiumOfficial

The silence is deafening. Any change you could weigh-in?

Much obliged!