I’m designing a board, it’s to large for the free version of Eagle, does makerspace have a business license for this software? or does anyone have a spare license key?
Eagle is a used to design circuit board layouts, do the computers at at the space have this software? or something similar? anyone know?
AFAIK we do not have any licensed versions of Eagle.
There are other options. I don’t want to tread into that zealous holy war and actually make recommendations though. It’s almost as dangerous as recommending vi vs. emacs, NVidia vs. AMD, or Intel vs. AMD. 
Other “free” (where free means different things) options are KiCad, Fritzing, Circuit Maker (cloud only), and Designspark PCB (don’t remember if cloud etc.).
I’m sure there are other options I am missing.
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ok cool, I will have to check those out. Eagles freeware version limits layout use to a 4"x3" board. which doesn’t do me any good… and in order to work with larger board layouts I would have to pay around $1600 to unlock that feature…
Is there anything specific software that the PCB Mill in the lab works best with?
The PCB mill just needs Gerber and drill (Excelon) files, so anything that can generate those should be good.
Sorry for reviving an old thread but @redfox I have the same question to work on a larger board. Do you have advice for how you came right?
I’d strongly recommend Kicad. I have used it for a complex 4-layer board with keep-out areas on the inner layers. While it may not be straightforward to figure out how to get something done, everything you need is available.
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And there is a KiCAD class on Nov 16.
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I like to use the tools largely adopted by the engineering development community. This way when considering contracting to do a job for XYZCorp, when they ask, “Do you have any experience with the Cadence PCB Design Suite?”
I like to be able to answer that question with something like, "I have used several of the industry standard suites. For schematics and symbol creation, I have entered designs using OrCad, Mentor, even Veribest back in the day. For layout, I prefer Allegro, Hyperlynx, Microwave Office, etc. But the reality is that these tools are similar in form, fit, and purpose. Having used the industry’s best, its not a long ramp up to use any schematic entry tool. Same for layout. I even spent years doing nothing but performing signal integrity analysys, in other words black art/voodoo employed to squeeze unreasonably fast signals through your bus or datastream at unprecedented rates without dropping bits. Some of the tools like allegro, hyperlynx, mentor, microwave office, all have simulation suites that can be purchased for a small fee (its not small) and operated by any idiot (as long as he knows exactly what he is doing). Some of these systems are optimized for SI, while some like Microwave Office and Ansoft are better choices for RF design/development/test situations, although Microwave Office is especially cool in that you could do both sorts of work in that environment, and their interface takes your design files (gerbers usually alongside other 3D files) and can even let you erect the 3D test environment for EMI (emissions) simulation. I think you can even bust out power delivery and crosstalk sims in MWO, but there is sigrity (also not cheap) in case you need to get real serious about your PDS.”
That answer is likely to result in job offer.
But you know, another option that I think makes a lot of sense for makers is the National Instruments board design options, NI Multisim and NI Ultiboard. These tools are pretty nice from what I have seen, and I believe you can get a fully featured student license for free as long as your work is for your education (not used in commmerical engagement). Interestingly, being a NI disciple personally, it is curious to note that it was a DMS member who pointed these NI board design options to me. Evidently, they have come into their own not all that long ago, and are developing a wide fanbase of starving college students, largely due to their ability to operate on standard file types used in PCB design industry, and lets not forget the student licensing option of course.
MY $0…02 would be to use the NI tools when given an option to choose. I would save the large expenditure on software until you are ready to invest a ludicrous sum of dollars to outfit your PCB development firm with industry standard PCB development software suite… And I don’t think DMS, being non-profit, falls under the category of commercial. Last I spoke to the big shots in Austin, they told me that DMS is largely educational for its members, and is exactly the sort of place that should be using educational licenses. But please don’t quote me on this from this letter. If this is something DMS wisely wanted more information about their options, we need to locate the official NI bigshot who serves the DFW area. Only (s)he can dole out binding permissions. It sure as heck aint me… 