Cedric: 16) Move the designators around on the silkscreen, so they are all visible.
Petra: “However, I’m still puzzled by one question related to bullet 16: I’d like to globally move in eeschema and in pcbnew a selection of component texts to another layer. For the moment I’m doing this one by one and it’s exhausting and prone to errors. Does it exist a procedure, a plugin or a workaround to automate the process for a selection ?”
When Altium places a component on the PCB, by default it’s designator is visible on the silkscreen, and it’s comment is hidden. Usually my PCB’s are crowded, so there’s another component overlapping the designator text. In order to correct that, I first select all designator texts on both the top and the bottom silkscreen, and use the PCB inspector to adjust their height from 1.5mm to 1mm. Then I select a single (partially) obscured designator text, and move it, so it will be readable on the final PCB. So basically when I have 2 resistors directly next to each other, I move (and rotate) their designators so they end up above the resistors where there’s free space on the board.
I frequently have the serie of R+R||C (divider and filter) at several adjacent microcontroller lines (to reduce 5V to 3V3 and filter glitches at inputs or to set the voltage and dU/dt at outputs). I end up with something like array of 0603 elements touching each other. I also reduce the text to 1mm high, but place them just in the elements rectangles. We have never placed designators at our PCBs (since 30 years) and (may be because of it) I don’t see the need for it. No one asked us for them so I assume no one really needs them. I think P&P is enough for our contract manufacturer.
We have never placed designators at our PCBs (since 30 years) and (may be because of it) I don’t see the need for it. No one asked us for them so I assume no one really needs them. I think P&P is enough for our contract manufacturer.
I routinely hand-solder PCB’s because I don’t make large production runs. Typically I make 2-5 boards. In that scenario it helps me to have guidance on the PCB itself
One really great thing about the plugin is it creates a single DHTML file that any device with a modern web browser can use that you can include in the archive of production files (see your workflow step 21). That way you don’t need to worry that hand assemblers have a computer that can run KiCad. It does work on my cell phone, but the small size of the screen does make things difficult. So I would imagine that it would work well on tablets. (KiCad isn’t compiled to work on either of those types of devices…)
At step 12, Draw the copper traces, Altium shows the name of the net in (very) small font in the trace. I can set the net names in the schematic using “net labels”. Also, I can set the color of the air wires per net. This is quite handy for power traces (those are dark red in my workflow), and communication buses (those have the color i feel like using at that moment).
Altium shows copper traces in their “native” colors, so red for top layer, and blue for bottom layer. Altium does not have the feature to show the copper traces in the custom net colors, like discussed above. Would this be a feature that is useful for anybody else than me?
I can set the net names in the schematic using “net labels”.
Same.
Also, I can set the color of the air wires per net.
Is in the roadmap for v6.
Altium shows copper traces in their “native” colors, so red for top layer, and blue for bottom layer. Altium does not have the feature to show the copper traces in the custom net colors, like discussed above.
Neither does KiCad.
Would this be a feature that is useful for anybody else than me?
You could also look at this work, which is quite active right now
and feed some of your design files into that, to see what reports are given.
There is also another pathway, if you export PCAD format files, those can load into PcbNew (when launched standalone)
That gives you a ‘second opinion’ check path.
I think Mentor’s PADS can do that. I’ve never used it much,but I have seen others use it.
In the nice to have basket, but I would place missing KiCad things like reconnect after nudge higher up the to-do list.
I like the idea. And if you use different sources of footprints, one could script to automatically change thermal relief setting depending on pad size. This could be implemented as an action plugin, and I wrote the idea down, but I am not making any promises.
A problem with “database integrateion for part management” is that KiCad is an Opens Source project, and has a very limited budget.
For example, some time ago KiCost worked with a backend to Octopart to crawl data and prices for parts. Octopart keeps track of the amount of data crawled, and over some limit it blocks automated tools and you need a (paid?) subscription to get the info. KiCad does not have a budget for such things. Altium which gets millions of dollars from it’s users each year does have a budget for that.
A problem with “database integrateion for part management” is that KiCad is an Opens Source project, and has a very limited budget.
For example, some time ago KiCost worked with a backend to Octopart to crawl data and prices for parts. Octopart keeps track of the amount of data crawled, and over some limit it blocks automated tools and you need a (paid?) subscription to get the info. KiCad does not have a budget for such things. Altium which gets millions of dollars from it’s users each year does have a budget for that.
From what I understand lots the big part stores also have special tools which continuously change small things in how their website works, and do this in such a way that the site looks the same to humans, but break automated scripts. They do this on purpose to frustrate the competition.
It’s a result of proprieatery narrow thinking in the commercial world.
It’s also the reason I only use Open Source Software, even when functionality is less.
My brother bought a mehcanical CAD package last year. 1 month later a newer version came out, to get that he almost had to double the amount of money for the update… With KiCad I can donate whenever I feel like it, or for example have used it in a (commercial) project, and at the same time can be ensured I can always update to the latest version for free as soon as it becomes available. Now try that with Altium!
When we bought Protel 3 in 1997 (what was very expensive for us - as I can remember we never bought any tool being more expensive) no one told us even a word that in few months there will be a new version with push and shove manual routing. When we said the distributor that he is not fair he offered us to buy a new version with 10% discount !
For points 21 to 23, these sort of outputs are easily produced by some simple Python scripting - there are lots of scripts available to achieve various combinations of exactly these sort of outputs but they might need a modest amount of editing to get exactly your required combinations of files but it is easily achievable.
A flexible solution might be something like this project (untested). looks like it should be easily configurable for your particular requirements. This, in turn references a number of other projects that you might find of interest.
Not only via stitching is available for KiCAD (as @maui shows below), but also via fencing, trace rounding, tear drops, and many other RF tools. Coming from Altium, OrCRAP, or other closed-source software takes a change in mentality more than anything else. KiCAD is open source, so a lot of third parties write plugins for it. Same with the mechanical software FreeCAD, which has been “married” to KiCAD. Thank’s to @maui’s work on StepUP and manipulator, painless push-pull between KiCAD and FreeCAD eases the workflow quite a bit, but this is not well-known because it is neither “official” KiCAD nor “official” FreeCAD. Take a look here to get an idea of what is available for KiCAD in addition to what @John_Pateman mentions above. FreeCAD uses well-known finite-element engines, so people have imported 3D pcb models from KiCAD into FreeCAD and run thermal analyses on them! (There are youtube videos about this, but I have not done it personally.) I know there are efforts under way to ease collaboration between KiCAD/FreeCAD and the open-source full 3D electromagnetic simulator openEMS.
Since KiCAD is open-source, technical support comes from/in forums rather than calling up Altium, Cadence, or a reseller. It takes a change of mentality. Altium agrees with this, where it mendatiously bashes KiCAD on its web site. Read that carefully. Altium lies on its web site! First, KiCAD is not free software, it’s open-source. Free is not necessarily open-source! Somebody can distribute a binary for free; that’s not open-source. Furthermore, open-source has the legal teeth to enforce quality standards on any code it accepts. Second, KiCAD is maintained by CERN and not by bored, lonely developers who work on it only sporadically. A look at the nightly builds shows how quickly KiCAD is developed! How long does it take for Altium to fix their bugs without screwing up something else? I have never used Altium, but I have used OrCRAP and I know how long it takes Cadence to fix bugs…
First, KiCad is Free Software. And it’s also free. That page by Altium is of course vague about the finer points, but they don’t lie about that specific point.
Second, KiCad isn’t maintained by CERN. They just help developing KiCad.