Am working on a project in KICD and it has a sub circuit that is being repeated throughout the project. How do implement this sub-circuit that gets used in several places within the schematic such that when i do the editing in one instance, he other instances gets updated automatically? this could help me to improve on how I currently do it which involves copy and pasting manually.
Yes, the Replicate Layout plugin does this, and it has been mentioned lots of times on this forum:
https://forum.kicad.info/search?q=replicate%20layout
However, currently it is non-functional.
It broke last december with the update for KiCad V6, and it has not been fixed yet.
You have a few options here.
One option is to go back to KiCad V5.1.x. The Replicate Layout still works in that version.
The Hierarchical sheets part is not a part of the Replicate Layout plugin, and this still works, so you can insert a (partial) schematic sheet multiple times into a hierarchical schematic.
For the PCB layout, you can create the layout for one of the sub circuits, then use the filters in the lower right corner of the PCB Editor and only copy the copper tracks for the other instances. Then you can use the endpoints of the tracks as a guidance to place the footprints for the other instances.
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You posted several questions. You might want to read this:
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The OP asked explicitly about schematic, not layout, but we can assume he may want to replicate the layout, too. For schematic it’s simple: learn to use hierarchical sheets, it’s a basic feature of KiCad, and you should learn that anyway even when you don’t need to use identical subcircuits.
As I said in another thread, the Replicate Layout plugin needs to be taken from the “5.99” branch from the git repository. I ported it to 5.99 some time ago, and if the kicad python API has been changed after that, I can try to fix it even before @MitjaN does that.
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Euhm…
I read 3 times that DuplexPCB tries to create the…
When I go to github I see thing like:
Doesn’t work yet, Upright factor must be minded
and:
Some rubbish added]
and:
Apparently the history of gitlab has been capped, and I can only see a few months back, but this seems to be a one-man project without much maintenance and currently not in a usable state.
I’m also not sure what it is supposed to do from the description.
Is it some kind of pannelization tool, or more in like the “Replicate Layout” script?
The combination of the above have already caused me to loose interst to examine further though.
If you want to make it more widely used, you need a better description and maintenance.
@ eelik…
Indeed. I should have written about the hierarchical sheets first.
That is what re-uses a sub circuit in a schematic multiple times and is a standard KiCad part.
The Replicate Layout action plugin uses the hierarchical sheets, and replacates the layout for them on the PCB.
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The new version of Replicate Layout for v6 is in https://github.com/MitjaNemec/ReplicateLayout.
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