Can I regress project from V4 to V3?

Software
1

We recently installed a newer version of KiCad (in Ubuntu 14.04, from the js-reynaud repository) in order to use the interactive router. However, our PCB vendor (CircuitHub) can’t use files from KiCad version 4 - their process uses the schematic and pcb files directly, rather than depending on Gerber plots.

Is there a reasonable way to get our project back to version 3 or produce files in version 3 format?

2

First of all - I am not sure if there is a way for downgrading KiCAD files.

But any PCB vendor should accept gerbers so that could be your solution. If CircuitHub is not able to read gerber files, that would be a little bit strange for a PCB vendor…

3

Thanks. I think part of their process is interactive BOM resolution - automatically suggested parts from their on-hand inventory based on schematic/library/footprint data from KiCad. I’m trying to talk with one of their tech people this morning. I suspect that library format is the issue but I don’t know for sure.

As a side note, I’m not sure what version 4 applies to. That’s what their system complains about, but I don’t see anything in KiCad that refers to anything with a 4 in it. wxWidgets is 3.0.2, for instance.

4

What happens if you open the KiCAD 4 files with the older version?
Good question indeed - from which build number it is version 4?

5

I’m going to install an older version on another machine and try it. One problem is that I don’t know how far back I have to go. I’m thinking that the ‘stable’ branch is probably old enough.

6

So - old Eeschema can open new schematics, but old pcbNew can’t open PCB layouts created with newest version. I haven’t looked at the details of the differences between the two pcb files, but that’s at least part of the problem.

8

To more fully answer this question: no, you can not regress your project from “V4” to “V3”. There were a number of changes implemented in the pcbnew file format. Once you load an old pcbnew it is converted to the new format and there is no going back.

I hope that CircuitHub will take a look at the new format and adopt it as well. The new format is fairly easy for developers to work with.