Aye, thats what I’ve got essentially. Ive included caps, timing and power placeholders. Ill produce this on PCB and IO to breadboard for the rest of the circuit development, switching to SMT when components and values etc are decided. Normally this would be plenty to complete a schematic but I’m going to be using a dsPIC33 80 pin flat package. There’s a heck of a lot of stuff in that chip that I don’t even know what pins I’m going to be using yet. I’ve got to mount it first so I can work this stuff out.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be in a position to start creating an actual schematic and then I can begin using the software the ‘intended’ way but first I need to hurdle this minefield of unknowns. I’ve got two chips to work with right now. They took 2 months to arrive from Thailand so if I mess this bit up thats going to be a lot of downtime waiting for a new batch.
Ofc, its nigh-on impossible to account for all usage scenarios within a software package, so I’m not going to gripe too much about the design flow. But that library…damn.
We have placed orders for parts which we got confirmation for September 2022 !!!
It looks that we will have to stop production for may be a half of year. But you have to live off something, and that’s the problem 
Yep I had that same problem. Most sample parts had a lead time of 364 days 
I’ll take this opportunity to give kudos to Maxim Integrated who sent me my sample ADC’s from the Philippines in 4 days by first class Air Mail. Inside the package they’d addressed and stamped another package even though that was never going to be seen or used by anyone. They paid for it twice… just in case. I emailed them about footprints. They told me about Ultralibrarian and then Emailed me the footprints anyway. Legendary first class service.
Farnell prices and lead times are crazy mental at the moment. I had to resort to BangGood for capacitors. 4500 0603 capacitors for £12. That’s 90 values of 50 caps each.
But I’m in a lucky position. My livelihood does not depend on this at the moment. I do a repair-all business on the side. Circuits to sashes and everything in between. I’m just a bit anxious about getting on with this project as I’m creating a Next-Gen in an existing semi-niche field in which there has NEVER been a NG advancement. Its a game-changing notion and I can’t understand why the existing experts in the field haven’t put 2 and 2 together on this one. So I’ve got to get it done before someone else realises what’s possible.
If you got an idea you can always ask: ‘why I didn’t got it earlier?’ and ‘why others didn’t got it?’
About 1990 we got two electronic keys from someone with question if we can do something like that or better. One had 16 contacts arranged 4x4 and door lock had 4 contacts contacting row by row in key during inserting. Connections between contacts were a code. Second was looking like modern flash drive ended with 4 pin socket so in door lock there were 4 pin header (raster 2,54). The key shape did not allow it to be inserted otherwise. There were a microcontroller inside.
Thinking how to improve that I invented RFID, made some experiments and found I can made it working. I didn’t know that it already exists 
For me it takes over a minute with oldish hw but with SSD, every time when the footprint libraries need to be reloaded (cache rebuilt). 3 minutes sound excessive. But as was said, using the old (and later removed) git loading feature it may be very long.
Ha. Love it.
This actualy brings rise to the concept of Natural Progression. Logical next steps etc. Upon thinking about why my idea hasn’t been done before, of course the next question is “Is it because its not possible?” and then “Am I missing something??”. I did some pretty extensive research. It feels like a naturally progressive move but a few steps ahead of the curve.
I’d love to talk about it but then I’ll nullify any chance of applying for a patent in the future. If this thing works as I intend or even if it HALF works as I intend then I’ll be set for life, as such. Incredible profit margins in this field. But I won’t lie…it is super ambitious and probably a large enough project for a team of 5 for 12 to 18 months.
Indeed. Our internet went down hard and has been dead for a whole week. So, I was tethering from a 3G Smartphone. Its very slow internet. This is why I experienced such excessive loading times.
I have never even thought about using KiCad with libraries located not at my HDD.
Nor I. This was a default install of 5.1.10.
The KiGitHub environment variable is there by default and I’m not entirely sure that anyone knows why the program attempts to access GitHub continuously. This should blatantly be a configurable and selectable option. I read it is removed in the later builds. The current behaviour baffles me, completely.
This is why I avoided a few particular EDAs. They seemed to require constant connection to some server and you are then uploading your IP to their servers to use their software. What the heck is that about? 
Risky business in my opinion.
I am using 5.1.10 at Windows 7 64 bit (the same install for Win 7 and Win 10) and I don’t remember I need to change where from are libraries.
May be it was something from previous installations. At Win 7 KiCad saves its configuration in C:\Users\{User}\AppData\Roaming\kicad
I use KiCad at PC not connected to internet.
The local libraries all seem intact. In the thread with the fix someone mentioned that upon detecting no GitHub folder, the program is supposed to revert to using some sort of cache, but this was not happening as it should have.
There has been discussion across the forum and GH about the lack of streamlining and accessibility of the local libraries. There seemed to be a lot of confusion about where the original files are stored and where additional files should be kept. I tend to agree; some of the program is distributed across Program Files and some in the users directory. I think my library files live inside the filepath
C:\Program Files\KiCad\share\kicad\library
The lib-tables in the Roaming folder appear to be something akin to a table of contents, although I havent looked extensively. It should all just be in one place, in my opinion. I actually really dont like it when programs jam stuff in my Users directory.
Github library was used by default in v4. If the installation has been replaced by v5 the library setup remains in the configuration (see Where are the configuration files (settings, library tables)?). That’s a common problem, see I had KiCad 4 installed previosly. Now i updated to v5. Now i have some problems with the library setup.
This is interesting behaviour also. Half updating upon a new installation. Yeah I have no such experience, I started at 5.1.10, my first install.
Not the best user experience if you don’t know what you are doing. In 5.99 you are given a chance to either keep the old config or start from scratch. Of course you have to know what you are doing even then, but at least you are given information what is happening and chance to affect it easily.
KiCad has matured by large steps from one major version to another. Not only features but also UI and UX are important for the developers.
Yeah I kinda feel a bit lucky having started now, after reading about some of the features that didnt exist before!
@Meat5000, I too was used to designing PCBs without having a schematic to convert (I am old enough to remember being handed a schematic and told to design a PCB from that !). I soon found that if I wanted to use KiCad efficiently I needed to draw a schematic first and that is what I now do, even for simple circuits, one of which was only 1.5" x 1", had a single SOIC8 and 6 other parts (all 1206 and everything hand-soldered). However, the main reason for my comment is you mentioned the components not fitting on to breadboard - CPC (cpc.co.uk, a part of the Farnell group) sell adaptor PCBs so you can, for example, fit a SOT23 or a SOIC8 to Veroboard. Very useful and I know they do some adaptors for some “spider” chips too.
Indeed, I had hoped to take this approach, with regard to the premade PCB adaptors. I came across 2 snags.
Firstly, the PCBs that would fit an 80-TQFP didnt allow enough space between tracks to fit the capacitors required for the power rails. By the time the traces had fanned out enough the maximum distance from the pins had been exceeded.
Secondly, using the MAX11198ATE+ turned out to be a problematic choice as its dimensions of 2mmx3mm in a 16pin TQFN are relatively new and unused on the market and in addition it ‘features’ a bottom footpad for heat etc, also. Premade PCBs for this simply dont exist, although they may in the future.
I’ve encountered another wall in that my printer is simply far from capable of producing such an accurate printout, despite its claims. Total rubbish. I might actually just take it to the printers and have them do that part on a more expensive and capable machine. Itll probably cost less than 50p.
Im also taken a back a bit by recent price hikes. The difference in price of premades on CPC and Farnell made my eyes fall out my head, almost, compared to something one might find on Ebay. And to be honest the difference in quality is not that grand.
I like a challenge, it seems. I’ll resort to Microscope and Scalpel if I have to.
Dropping the GITHUB stuff in 5.0.x was a big plus for me as I only had ADSL in those days and the ping time from KL to the USA could reach a second. Loading was painful. Telcos were known to give priority to ping for marketing reasons and the actual data was stuck with buffer bloat, several seconds deep
I’m currently tethering from 3G. Not quite as painful as your situation but I could easily make a cup of tea on each load as a result
Consequently, I posted an Issue on GitLabs in which after Id applied GitHub-Null fix I could make the Library loading hang again with some repeatable steps.
I was subsequently asked to install and test an 11/12 version for the same issue. The loading was dismal until such time as I’d Repaired all the ki_mod files which the Loader had flagged. After that the loading is quick and is yet to hang.
Whilst this does not help with the 5.1.10 situation, it does suggest that bad ki_mod files may be the primary reason for all of the slow loading issues.
I’m not a Ki_mod dev at all but it could seem that such loading is performed serially and not in an async fashion or as part of a separate class. Its why the whole program locks up and KiCad hogs over 90% of my CPU attempting to load its data.
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