I've been working in PCBWeb Designer for a few years. I have several prototype circuit/board designs that I've put together, which I want to have made. I have the original PCBWeb Designer files for the schematic and boards, with all of the components and trace routing. Now I have a new computer and I can't seem to find a download to install PCBWeb Designer. I want to have a few hundred boards made but it seems I cannot open any of my files without PCBWeb Designer. Does anyone know if there is another app that can open the PCBWeb .CAD files?

I have the Gerber outputs and the PCBWeb files. I have only produced Gerbers, I have never started with Gerber files to try to recreate my schematics and board designs. I would hate to think I've lost years of work. I'm a Chemist, a Statistician and a self made mechanical engineer. I've had to learn electrical engineering on my own and it's really daunting to think that my inventions are lost if I can't open my schematics and board design files!

What other programs could open those PCBWeb Designer files? Is there still a way to download and use PCBWeb Designer??!!

Thanks, all.

 

Google pcbweb designer .
You will find a free download

 

Hope you can find the program files.

Gerber files don't contain the information to go backwards to a schematic. You may be able to extract a netlist, but that will only tell you which pads are connected together. It won't tell you anything about the components that go on those pads. The reference designators will give a hint – R1 is a resistor, C7 is a capacitor, but it won't help with values.

 

I've been working in PCBWeb Designer for a few years. I have several prototype circuit/board designs that I've put together, which I want to have made. I have the original PCBWeb Designer files for the schematic and boards, with all of the components and trace routing. Now I have a new computer and I can't seem to find a download to install PCBWeb Designer. I want to have a few hundred boards made but it seems I cannot open any of my files without PCBWeb Designer. Does anyone know if there is another app that can open the PCBWeb .CAD files?

I have the Gerber outputs and the PCBWeb files. I have only produced Gerbers, I have never started with Gerber files to try to recreate my schematics and board designs. I would hate to think I've lost years of work. I'm a Chemist, a Statistician and a self made mechanical engineer. I've had to learn electrical engineering on my own and it's really daunting to think that my inventions are lost if I can't open my schematics and board design files!

What other programs could open those PCBWeb Designer files? Is there still a way to download and use PCBWeb Designer??!!

Thanks, all.

https://pcbweb-designer.informer.com/2.0/
or
https://pcbweb-designer.informer.com/3.0/

 

Google pcbweb designer .
You will find a free download

Hey, eetech00. Thanks for your response. I tried for a couple of hours last night to find a download for PCBWeb Designer. I searched using Bing, Google and Duckduckgo. The link from Digikey and the original URL for the vendor's website now reroute to a data sheets website where you can shop for components. No download there.

I found a couple of 3rd party websites with all kinds of click bait. I tried two of them and got an error message instead of a download.

If you are saying that YOU can find a working link, then that means the problem is with my computer. Maybe a firewall issue or maybe the downloads aren't clean and got blocked. Can you confirm there is a link that is working for you?

 

Hope you can find the program files.

Gerber files don't contain the information to go backwards to a schematic. You may be able to extract a netlist, but that will only tell you which pads are connected together. It won't tell you anything about the components that go on those pads. The reference designators will give a hint – R1 is a resistor, C7 is a capacitor, but it won't help with values.

Jon, thanks for the info. Its exactly what I needed to know. I have a BOM with the Gerber, so maybe not as bad that the Gerber are all I have left. I still just need something to open them with. I can remember the placement of almost all of the components. Will Eagle or another program open any Gerber files from a different app or are the files app specific?

 

Jon, thanks for the info. Its exactly what I needed to know. I have a BOM with the Gerber, so maybe not as bad that the Gerber are all I have left. I still just need something to open them with. I can remember the placement of almost all of the components. Will Eagle or another program open any Gerber files from a different app or are the files app specific?

If you can't view the schematics, you'll have to retrace using the gerber files.
You can use the free "DFM Now" to view the Gerber files.
If you have a silkscreen gerber file with reference designators, that will help identify the components.

www.dfmnow.com

 

I have copy PCBweb install v3.1.109 to load the *.cad file Windows10, print schematic PDF even get into PCB to make some minor changes, export Gerber. Arrow took over the project shortly after dropped all my custom footprints and later disconnected the cloud server holding all the symbols. The issue is it can't log on to the server or edit footprints and program keeps trying to connect to cloud, must cancel each time. Arrow bounced me off sales for complaining about missing data base. Close to filing a law suite for loss of custom footprints spent hundreds of hours R&D. No one at Arrow has yet apologized or given any reason for abandoning the Amazon cloud server editor database account, start of Covid as I recall. You can import the PCBweb Gerber into Digikey KiCad make PCB changes but any graphic zones do not allow nets to attach loss of thermals on adding any new pads as I have discovered among other issues. Recently asked Arrow web support to consider putting PCBweb server half one of their corporate servers. Seemingly a mutli-billion $$ company should have no problem doing such. The file is 21MB to big to attach will put in the MS OneDrive for anyone.

Email attachments - OneDrive (live.com)

Regards

 

What is your revision level?

The download website
Pcbweb-designer dot informer dot com shows the latest to be 3.1.109, but was last updated on January 2018.
There is an additional user comment from 2020 complaining about the same issues you do.
Thus….The publishing company must have gone belly-up. Bummer!

 

This is why I keep a copy of the download for everything I install.

 

What is your revision level?

The download website
Pcbweb-designer dot informer dot com shows the latest to be 3.1.109, but was last updated on January 2018.
There is an additional user comment from 2020 complaining about the same issues you do.
Thus….The publishing company must have gone belly-up. Bummer!

Same version, developer Silicon Frameworks seemingly sold the source code to someone. The question is too who and why was it abandoned? It was developed for PCB houses though the China based PCB company listed in menu could not handle the tight spacing requirements. The biggest issue being it crashed a lot until updates were made in Beta version and gets dog slow when CAD file reaches 2MB in size. Every component add or move takes 5 minutes wait for display to update the change even with large area zone fills being turned off. How the developer missed that amazes me but it's very powerful even without DRC rules or component library or editor features.