OrCAD Capture

What do you like best?

Since many of us were introduced to ORCAD in lab during graduation studies, it sort of built a notion that its more specific towards academics, but throughout the years it has evolved to be targeted more towards industry, keeping the edge it had being an education oriented software of PSpise simulations, making it very powerful tool.

It retained keyboard shortcuts etc. from the very early versions which is useful for returning users.

One good feature is cross platform schematic translators for Altium and Eagle.

What do you dislike?

lack of Integration of all components in one suite, generally EDA and other engineering software are moving towards more integrated approach collecting every component in one suite. It would have been more convenient if ORCAD improved more in this regard. While user friendliness of UI is not very Ideal, usage in general is easy to get accustomed to, and after you are familiar with the design flow. In terms of time required to master it, I will still consider it as a con.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Designing and simulating Analog input card for a compressor controller. Although It could have been done on simpler software like eagle, I chose ORCAD because of its simulation capabilities and orderly design flow.

I plan to implement the whole project in it, by the initial look of it, sure seems like it will be able to handle the project very well, as I was able to work so far with only the library parts.