One thing that I suspect is hurting the fritzing project is that users of the fritzing program are creating their boards using the fritzing software and then having companies in China or other countries fabricate the PCB’s instead of having the fritzing people in Berlin produce or manufacture the boards. It may be cheaper in China but I am sure it is not as good a quality as you would get from fab fritzing in Germany. Personally if I design a PCB using the fritzing software I would pay a little bit more to make sure the boards are manufactured properly and with better quality. Also the people at fritzing are better able to spot and correct issues with the PCB layout than are these other companies in China and Taiwan, etc. One way we can funnel funds into the fritzing project is to have the people at fritzing fabricate our boards. Just a thought. Let me know what you all think. Rick B.
Most of the comments I’ve seen on the forum has to do with components. Either creating them or finding them. The larger the components library the easier it will be for people to use. Every project I’ve tried to create I had to find some part. I’m talking about common parts that are used on a lot of Arduino and other projects. Luckily on one of them someone had contributed a part. The other someone contributed a part but wasn’t quite right. I tried my luck at making the part I needed and that didn’t go well.
They need an easier way to create parts and a way to include user-contributed parts with each release. Once the library contains enough parts to keep people from running into stopping points it will make better headway.
I will never purchase boards from Fritzing PCB as I’m in the US and buy from OshPark. My concern with Fritzing & PCB service is that there exports to gerber are wachy sometimes and some board houses have issues with there files. So Fritzing is almost locking you into using their service.
the parts issues @mrmonteith mentions is very valid and my comment above + this is the reason I’m moving to using EagleCA exclusively.
I’m sorry you had a bad experience with fritzing… But to clarify, I’ve personally never once had an issue with having my boards produced outside of fritzing. This includes several different board manufacturers(USA & China). Never once have I seen this so call ‘wachy’ you’re talking about. OR a locking of service to only using fritzing fab. The Manufacture option(s) are for your choosing, not Fritzing, never anything different. In-fact, it couldn’t have been a smoother transition to manufacturer from fritzing for me. So I would have to disagree with your statements. Like anything there is a learning curve. Making parts is often one of these issues. Regardless of the ‘software used’, you’ll find a learning curve somewhere. The ability to manipulate parts threw .svg files is simply a godsend for me…(just my 2 pennies) I’ve had thousand’s of dollars worth of boards made. NEVER AN ISSUE. I had to clarify this… Also note, fritzing is BETA software. Thanks for trying the software to see if its right for you.
Don’t misunderstand me. I love the product as not only a way to build a project but document the breadboarding process as well. A good end-to-end project. Plus the ability to use those images on a website to show your work and make it easier for others to replicate.
I suggest maybe a survey of users to find out what keeps them from using it as much as should be.
When you check the gerber files with gerber viewer then you should be able to see how the factory sees them.
I ordered 2 board from 2 random pcb factories and all where exellent.
however i also laserprinted a few myself and had a few wacky traces, mainly because i didn’t take the time to do a rough visual check with a gerber viewer.
Does anyone know websites that give away prizes? (where we can put Fritzing forward as project to get a prize)
Hack a day, Instructables?