On Dec 22, 4:48*pm, "Carl McIver" wrote:
* * So my lab has an EE who uses his own software to work out his own
circuit boards, and I have nothing to draw out all the external interface
and control systems I design and build. *A decision was made to find a
single software that he could use for circuit design and analysis, and for
which we could use outside the circuit board. *I also do a lot of control
panels and so on for a variety of projects, and have been told by a friend
that Visio Pro works for diagrams, but few that I've talked to have liked it
(I'm also having serious difficulty making it work for me) and it can't
interface with the analysis software.
* * Any good all around suggestions for software or combinations of software
that will work for us? *I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this issue..

They may not be the right answer for you, but I had good results with
Viewlogic for circuit design and simulation coupled into PADS for PC
layout and mechanical drawing. I was making microwave radios and comm
lasers with optics and the enclosures I drew with PADS were quite
complex.

PADS now includes schematic capture and simulation but I've only tried
the free demo version of it and don't know how well it would handle a
complex circuit. It also has the transmission line analysis functions
we had to do by hand. It is NOT an easy program to learn.
http://www.mentor.com/

Viewdraw is actually a capable drafting program itself; I've used it
to draw the physical interconnects for an IC layout on top of the
electrical schematic.

Jim Wilkins