3D new library for Mechanical CAD exporting and enclosure design

By defining it in the footprint settings and by setting the environment variables for both kicad and stepup to look up the right places.

120 Swiss francs per two man hours according to cern:

wow that comes to more than the salary of 5 average software engineers…

Freelancers would be even more expensive. Especially in europe. They need to pay taxes (both the taxes normally paid by the worker and the taxes payed by the company), insurance, …
And they also need to include some off time. (And time needed to find new work.)
(After taxes and the other stuff they hope they are left with a normal pay.)

And about the assignment how’d you do that in stepup and why’d the conversion not work in kicad , well I know we’ve talked about it before but couldn’t find an answer sins then.

and I’m pretty sure taxes are not around 100%+

Kicad stable does not support step.
This is why stepup is needed.
(Stepup has some other features but they are not relevant here)

Assigning a 3d model for stepup is done in the same way as for assigning it for the internal 3d viewer. Only thing you need to do is to tell kicad where your 3d model libs are located.

I found the following explanation of why paying for workers is so expensive using the Austrian taxation system (In german). There the worker gets 9,2€ when the customer needs to pay 59,8€ per hour. (So the 60 francs might result in about 10 francs for the guy who does the programming.)
And yes not everything is used for taxes. (Some stuff is used to pay for the infrastructure needed.)
http://www.tischlerdienst.at/der-preis-einer-arbeitsstunde/

To let StepUp knowing where are your 3D models, you need to configure your ‘ksu-config.ini’ file.
At the first page of StepUp Cheat Sheet the environment variables are described.

You can have 2 environment variables to configure the 3D paths.

You may find useful this thread:

updated PLCCs and added the MELFs…

Maui - thanks for the FC macro… was really helpful in getting this automated.
Here is my modification/upgrade of it:
KiCADinfo_FreeCAD_STEPtoVRML.py (10.6 KB)
Maybe you (or others) can use it or take bits from it.

The script checks a folder for stp files and works with them (add info, convert to vrml) if they are not in a hashfile yet. then a new hashfile is written so only new/changed files have to go through this again.
I still have to add something that adds license info to the vrml files.
Cherry on top would be if the stp file name is of the form “blahblah_T.stp” that the script would stop after setting shaded view and scaling and let me set the transparency for the part that needs it and would then go on it’s merry way… working on that over in the FC forums:
http:allicdata.com

I am just learning KiCAD but would be very interested in the footprint files for the Arduino Micro board. Can you make these available? I have done a Google search but have not turned up anything…

Regards,
Bob W7OV

Hi Bob,
i have attached the files form ~2015 as zip…
(Schematics / Footprints / 3D)
all that i did back then…
but be warned - i have not used theme since then… so i don’t know if they work in the current KiCad version.
and they definitely do not comply to the KLC :slight_smile:

have fun :slight_smile:
sunny greetings
stefan

arduino_parts_2015_schematics.zip (6.2 KB)
arduino_parts_2015_footprints.zip (2.2 MB)
arduino_parts_2015_3dshapes.zip (2.0 MB)

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Hi, where can I get the 3d model for that enclosure?

Thanks, I will give this a try and post back with the results.