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Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

(OP)
I have yet to hear anything good about the Situs autorouter in DXP from any of the users.  Altium has told me that most of the problems can be corrected by just setting up the router properly.

Has anyone had any luck with with Situs? Will Protel 2004 fix the problems that Altium says do not exist?

Steve Smith, C.I.D.
Product Engineer
Staco Energy Products Co.
www.stacoenergy.com

RE: Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

I have a DXP license but haven't had much opportunity to use it. The router in the prior version (Protel 99SE) is definitely usable, and my understanding is that Situs is an improvement. What Altium has said is at least partially true, that, at least, many of the problems that one might encounter may be solved by proper setup. Altium support personnel, however, have only a tiny fraction of the experience available from users. I'd ask this question on the DXP list (see another post I just made here), and if not satisfied with the answers there, I'd go to the completely independent PEDA list (also described in my other post.) Note that the PEDA list is more heavily weighted with 99SE users who have not upgraded and you are more likely to get carping there based on superficial experience, perhaps with the trial version of DXP, which has a bad reputation with some 99SE users. Exploring DXP myself, I can understand why, but much of the reason is that DXP changed certain common functions and Altium has not been very successful in explaining this. Protel Global Edits were very easy. The new Query/Inspector system, it turns out, is also easy and much more powerful; but it is different enough that if a 99SE user is not willing to do some serious manual reading, he is going to find himself very frustrated....

I can literally answer the question ("Has anyone had any luck with Situs?") quite easily. Yes. But that is not the real question. The real question is actually a series of questions, i.e., how do you do X and Y?

Autorouters are getting better, but they still have their limitations, especially when they belong to a whole suite of programs costing under $10,000. As to the prior autorouter, it has definitely been a useful tool for me, just as a hammer is a useful tool. You still have to know how to use it and what it can and cannot do. The software company is not highly motivated to tell you about the limitations! You'll get better information about this from skilled users.

RE: Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

(OP)
Abd,

Thanks for the reply.  As a 99SE user, I have just about given up on PEDA as there seems to be more ranting and going off on tangents than useful info anymore.  The best thing about this forum is that I will not be inundated with useless ranting and can follow just the threads that truely interest me.

I have been following the DXP forum and have heard very little that would justify the expense of upgrading.  I have seen so many complaints about the autorouter that I have recommended that we (Staco Energy) wait for Protel 2004.  Since our budget is set for this year, this means that we will not be updating until 2005.  Hopefully Protel 2004 SP2 will be out by then and it will be worth going for.

Regards,
Steve Smith  

RE: Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

In order to be useful, user forums have to have many members or at least a few active and knowledgeable ones. If they have many members (and are not tightly controlled, which doesn't work very well with engineers), there will be schmoozing and off-topic comments and a few rants. I filter all my list mail into a folder. If the subject line doesn't interest me, I don't read it. So I don't feel particularly "inundated with useless ranting." But there hadn't been any traffic on the PEDA list for about a week (which is unusual). If you've got a question, it gets answered there by people who know what they are talking about, in addition to, sometimes, a few who don't. I find this superior to no answers at all....

The question starting this thread is really a DXP question, and the percentage of DXP users on the PEDA list is small. The users I respect most have largely gone to DXP and do claim it to have been worthwhile. My own investigation of DXP has been sufficient to lead me to understand why some users are frustrated with it, but also to see why the best solution is not to dump DXP but rather to take the time to learn how to use it. It is different in enough ways to frustrate the heck out of a 99SE user who expects to sit down and just start using DXP with no retraining. I was pretty frustrated with what I saw as the loss of the easy, fast Global Edits. But I hadn't read the manual. Part of the problem is that object selection is different in DXP; I kept trying to do things the way I'd done them in 99SE and it just didn't work.

I think that Altium made a mistake in the way they moved from 99SE to DXP; but it is more of a PR error than a substantial one. DXP *is* an upgrade, an improvement, and one worth the cost at the present time, even if there were not more coming.

By waiting to upgrade, you are losing opportunity; you might not want to start using DXP until you have a lull in your work and you can spare the time for learning. However, a DXP upgrade now includes Protel 2004. If you wait until 2005, there is a good chance the upgrade cost will go up. Historically, Protel upgrade pricing has gradually increased. Sometimes there have been sales where the price goes down temporarily; however, early upgraders have never spent more than a few hundred dollars extra, and they received many more months of having the new program for that. Bottom line, I don't know of anyone who has regretted upgrading early (in retrospect; sometimes there is transient dissatisfaction, as with Protel 99 in the earliest release, and with some 99SE users now who tossed the package on the shelf. Users who persisted seem to have come around. Like me.)

At the very least I'd watch Altium for any announcements that the upgrade price is going up, they always have made the announcement at least a month in advance.

I'd go back to the DXP list and specifically ask if there are any reasons you should upgrade. You'll hear some! I wasn't on that list until today, so I don't know if you asked there. You won't get this information, though, merely by following the list, unless someone else asks the same question. Instead you'll read about the problems, not the stuff that works. I do know you didn't ask your question about Situs or about reasons to upgrade on the PEDA list. Why not?

RE: Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

(OP)
The upgrade price will go up $1,000 USD when Protel 2004 is released.  As I said, our budget is set for this year and I will have to wait until this fall to request the upgrade for the 2005 budget.

I did not ask this question on the PEDA list because at the time it seemed to be down again. Since then my name may be blocked by many of the members since PEDA sent out so many multibles of my last post that members thought I was either spamming them or had a virus.  I know that PEDA posted an explaination of their problems that cleared me of all wrong doing but I'll wait until the smoke clears before posting there again.  

RE: Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

If you are talking about PCB SW , SOFTCAD-s EAGLE may be a cheaper solution -- and what I have seen from your WEB-site
it may be good enough to you.

<nbucska@pcperipherals.com>

RE: Is theSitus Autorouter any good?

(OP)
nbucska,

No Eagle was not a good choice for us.  We looked at many differant packages and as to getting the best bang for your buck - Protel 99SE came out ahead.  It actually is a very nice package it just has some iritating bugs, but so do many of the other software packages that are comparable to it.

The DXP upgrade offered little reason for us to update and the problems with the new autorouter that I saw many complain about on the DXP forum only cemented our position.  The new 2004 upgrade will hopefully be worth our looking at next fiscal year.

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