Complete PCB Design Using OrCAD Capture and PCB Editor

I have to say that this book completely surpassed my expectations... EVERYTHING I COULD THINK OF IS HERE. It also explains everything in such detail and with examples that any engineer, from students to professionals, benefit greatly from it.The book includes:- Thermal dissipation.- Rules on footprints creation according to official standards explained in detail.- Appendixes with great references in addition to this book (which most of the time are app notes available for free on the web).- Signal integrity explained at such level that it could explain in 15 pages what took me 2 years in college (I am not slow [I don't think I am :)] but in college everything is so theoretical that seeing multiple examples helps A LOT to digest it and apply it in the real world).- Every time something from Orcad is explained and you wish for an example... an example is in the next page :)- Routing for power electronics and for high speed signals (which are the trickiest to master).BTW, my 2 cents. Orcad is such a complete but complex piece of software that it is not as intuitive as Altium and others out there... like a colleague of mine said: "Orcad is great but you need a PhD to be proficient at it" <--- (quite a stretch but it is difficult to master... this book will get you there in no time).Finally... I never buy books to learn software... I had always find great tutorials on the web to master other PCB/sym software, Math software, programming languages.. you name it... but for Orcad is sooo hard to find a good and complete tutorial... THIS BOOK TAKES CARE OF THAT!

This book's utility depends on what you want from it. If, as the title suggests, you want to learn how to use ORCAD to design boards, you will be disappointed. Not from lack of detail, the book is full of beautiful screen shots and helpful text. It is well thought out and comprehensive.The problem is that despite a 2007 copyright date, this book is woefully outdated. Cadence is currently on release 16.6 of Orcad. The book CD has release 10.5 included; this release will not install and run on Windows 7 or later. So you will be forced to set up an XP or possibly an NT environment to use the book. It is possible, but you will not like it.If you choose to download the current 16.6 crippled demo version from the Cadance website, know that the book illustrations no longer match the dialog boxes and selections that you will be looking at. Learning 16.6 from this book will be tough.BTW, do not attempt to install 10.5 on 7; it will screw up the registry so 16.6 will not install, and 10.5 will not uninstall itself on 7. You will have to manually delete all references to Cadance and Orcad from your registry, a very tedious and risky proposition at best.If, on the other hand, you wish to understand the overall process of PCB design and manufacture, and are content with outdated examples, this book would be a good choice.I am not sorry I bought the book, but I am reticent to recommend it to others; You will not receive the knowledge that the title suggests.

I'm a hobbyist just learning about the basics of PCB design, and since this book seemed to have the best reviews I ordered up a copy. I found the book informative and clear. But I should warn those in my position that OrCAD is probably not the software for you; you can still learn from this book, but the chapters with step-by-step tutorials through the program will be only indirectly relevant.When I first received the book I followed instructions and downloaded the program through the publisher's webpage. Only gradually did I realize that this free version of OrCAD is so crippled by restrictions as to be, at least for my purposes, useless (e.g. no newly-created components with more than 14 pins). Not to mention that OrCAD's user interface is, to put it charitably, non-intuitive. It took considerable web surfing to determine that buying the full version of OrCAD would set me back a cool $6000. So ultimately I found some freeware (FreePCB) that does the job for me quite adequately and has a better user interface to boot. I'm not returning the book, but I'm not certain I would have bought it if I knew then what I know now.

As a tech writer for over 44 years, I rate this book with very high marks for presentation, content, and authorship.I bought it thinking that Linux is pretty much a free OS and that I would buy the OrCAD software suite when I got around to it.So, I designed several SMT prototypes and finally got around to designing the PCBs.This is when I visited the EMA Design Automation, Inc. website and my jaw dropped through the black hole in our galaxy.The entire OrCAD suite pushes total costs to about $20,000, the price of a new car.If you are developing SMT protoypes, there are plenty of free PCB design tools offered by companies who want your PCB business (very cost-effective PCBs can be had for $20).The only down side is, if you are not running Windows XP, Windows Vista/Windows 7 may not be compatible.This is why I wanted a Linux/Ubuntu OS and NOT the Hollywood Windows Fx versions.Good luck.

Great book overall! Detailed information on how to use the software, which industry specifications to reference, how to design pads / footprints / layout, and what to send the fabricators. This is a how-to-use-software book, it is not quite a a how-to-design-pcb book, as designing a PCB requires more understanding than just how to draw lines and holes. It goes through 4 designs, all of which are not optimized and can be designed better. There are also updatedfeatures of the software not described int the book, but can be found on Cadence forums and in youtube videos. Remember he uses v16.2, and the most current version is v16.6-2015.Just a note, fig 9.5 is wrong, C2 is s polarized cap and need to be flipped.

Optimum starting point for PCB knowledge gaining. Oustanding chapters are those about PCB standards, manifacturing and EM aspects. I didn't give five stars because chapter 6 it's too verbose in some key points especially when dealing with electrical line lenght. But the author honestly addresses to proper references.

It is very good and helpful book with nice representation. Easily understandable.

This book can make you understand how to do Orcad's PCB, if you are good at circuit or schematic design, but never did anything like board design. This is the first PCB book I have used for PCB design, after that, I understand other PCB books. So good for beginners, and easy English is used.

Excellent condition and on-time.