I don’t do much through-hole anymore, but @blackcoffee got me off playing with some step colors a while back, and I made a few handy t1 leds and 1/8w resistors in freecad. Well, I didn’t actually make them, but scammed on a starter step file or two from kicad or grabcad and tweaked colors…
for-fun.zip (471.7 KB)
Inventor FX KiCad Project Extras v8.0.3
Custom Designed for the Projects:
3D STP & WRL Models
Footprint Libraries
Symbols Library
The 3D Models are compatible with most KiCad Versions
IFX KiCad Extras web Page Link:
IFX Kicad Extras (inventfx.com)
After 50 years in electronics I never needed this.
Ki is PCB layout, schematic capture, and also SPICE and 3D view, the last two I do with other programs.
What is the purpose?
As other guys said, use either standard footprints with appropriate 3D models or make your own. Sites like EasyEDA, Mouser and some others also have proper footprints for almost any component that is particularly easy to import in KiCad. In this way I got a lot of SMD component models. Also ones with non-standard footprints.
And if you’re using old KiCad version, upgrade to at least 7.x.
CSV-2024
After 50 years in electronics I never needed this.
Ki is PCB layout, schematic capture, and also SPICE and 3D view, the last two I do with other programs.
What is the purpose?
3D view is very convincing way to show your customer how particular PCB will look when finished. Believe me, it works 
Without involving another 3D rendering software which either you must purchase for obscene amount of money or it may not work on your everyday OS or both.
3D view in general is very useful for several purposes.
I always check the silkscreen with the 3D view. It gives completely different feel compared to the plain design view of the PCB editor, especially if all the components are there.
It’s much easier to see how much there’s room for, say, hand soldering the parts. The PCB editor view is much more abstract, and importing/exporting with external SW takes time and is unnecessarily complicated.
It’s possible to for example add a chassis as a footprint/3D model and see how the board and the parts fit in, in real time without exporting/importing with another software. You can make small gradual changes and see the result immediately.
But for “realistic” view of color coded resistors, I don’t know.
Color coded resistors on a PCB would be a “hobby grade” concern.
A different “feel” you can get from rendering the board to Gerber files, then open those files with a Gerber viewer, like open source GERBV.
3D for tool clearance not much of a problem. Put your SMT parts on the opposite side of thruhole parts.
Include clearances for connectors, caps, modules and the like in each foot print, including mated connectors.
Rendering a STEP file for a board to use in 3D cad can be useful.
In making over 300 boards I have NOT ONCE used a 3D viewer.
Every connector drawing I ever seen has never showed the mated dimensions. For that you have to get those in your hands an measure yourself.
Critical dimensions for clearances can be added to the foot print drawing on a non-Gerber layer, printable on a drawing but not rendered on the PCB.
I see a lot of answers like this here.
What is the purpose you ask ?
The purpose is my purpose. You don’t need to know that.
Nothing to do with you, or how you prefer to work.
These things always have context.
In one context there is no purpose. In another context, a feature can be quite valuable.
Do not assume that the way you do things is the best way for everybody.
Being new to Kicad, questions arise. I pose a simple question asking if a particular
feature is available. Then I get multiple answers telling me why I don’t need that
particular feature, or I shouldn’t be doing things that way.
Is this the PCB police ?
Please just answer the question. Yes the feature is available and how to access it, or No it is not available.
Thats all I want to know…
Yes feature is available, but not entirely feasible. What you do is you make your own 3d models and assign your 3d models to your footprints.
No there’s no way to do this without you making your own models and possibly a lot of footprints. Don’t care why you need it nor do i know if you have any way of making the models yourself. And yes this does mean that you need a huge number of models but its possible and I have occasionally done so. But only you can answer if its worth the effort.
PS: the reason people want to know why you want something is that that’s kind of the currency of the discussions. You get something we get something discussions, aren’t just about your goals. If that kind of feature would be eliminated nobody would answer. Secondly it makes it easier to motivate people to make better tools.
A week ago (post above) I gave you a zip file with some colored resistors and leds as a starter. Did you look at it?
yes I did. Thanks for that.
My only reason for asking is that some PCB programs do have this feature.
Not essential. Just curious…
Since the 3dmodel is attached to the kicad footprint, you need a separate footprint for every resistor value, led… You can start with one footprint, duplicate it, rename it, edit it to change the 3dmodel, rinse and repeat.
You can then add footprint filters to your resistor/led/whatever symbol to list multiple footprints (to select when you plop them into your schematic) like this:
Or, for your resistor/led application, name footprints with a trailing value (eg: R_0.125W_1k, R_0.125W_3.3k…) and use a wildcard in the footprint filter (eg: R_0.125W_*) – the trailing asterisk pulls up all footprints with that prefix when you go to add them to your schematic . This example is for all 4-pin pushbuttons but shows the trick:
You then need to edit the symbol value to match the fancy footprint with the appropriate colored bands. Kinda hackey but workable.
Note: these symbol editor footprint filters are for non-database users (most users, I suspect). With a kicad database there will be separate part numbers for each resistor value, each tied to the appropriate footprint/3dmodel. I am using a database, and these symbol footprint filters are just leftover fluff from my pre-database v6 days. However, the I found the filters quite handy before I moved to a database.
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