Hello everyone.
I’m new to the forum and also fairly new to using KiCad. I’ve already created a couple of boards but on my latest project have encountered a problem.
I needed a SOIC-18 footprint for one of my components and since KiCad did not have this footprint, I looked for one online and found the following library. https://github.com/ab2tech/KiCad
I installed and added it successfully. The problem is that for some reason the footprint I added from this library appears in microscopic scale on the layout. See in the picture below. I can’t seem to find any information regarding this issue and how to rectify it. I would very much appreciate your input regarding this, thank you.
Note: Tried to attach a picture but I’m not allowed as a new user. I will try to post it once I’m able to.
Unfortunately I still can’t post pictures so I can show what this looks like. Definitely not a problem with zooming in as some SM0805 components are showing up way way larger than this SOIC18. In fact the SOIC18 is so small that I’m maxing out the zoom and still can’t even see it. The field reference text seems to show up normal, just not the actual footprint for the component.
Eh…
The coordinates in the module look alright: https://github.com/ab2tech/KiCad/blob/master/modules/ab2_so.pretty/AB2_SO18_W.kicad_mod
You have some other problem with the module/library, especially as you “can’t see” it.
Open the footprint editor (once you loaded your project) and in there open the footprint browser… steer it to this particular SO-18 footprint and see if you can see something there…
What KiCAD version are you using?
Looks the same when I open it in the editor. Same thing when I look at it on CVpcb’s footprint viewer. I can see the connections going to the footprint, it’s just super super small.
It looks like I may have an old version of KiCad. I’m using it on ubuntu and apparently the one available through software center is a bit old. My copy says BUILD (2011-05-25)-stable wxWidgets 2.8.11.
I tried to update it using the following instructions,
but when I use either the software center method or the shell method I get a 404 not found on the repository address(es). Not entirely sure what this means or what may be causing this. Would an old version of the software cause this issue?
Your version of kicad would not read that footprint file; it’s in a newer file format.
What is the address that you get a 404 error on? Do you need to configure a proxy or something else?
If you look at the ppa (https://launchpad.net/~js-reynaud/+archive/ubuntu/kicad-4) you’ll see that the oldest version the packages are provided for is 14.04.
Try contacting the maintainer (js-reynaud) and asking for 12.04 packages since it is still an actively supported release.
Thanks for the tip. I ended up taking a bit of a quicker route and I installed KiCad into my virtual windows machine.
There I’ve run into a new brick wall. I basically copied my old schematic onto a new project. When I go to CVpcb through the schematic editor it gives me the following.
Long list ahead!
Errors were encountered loading footprints
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Air_Coils_SML_NEOSID.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Air_Coils_SML_NEOSID.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Transistors_OldSowjetAera.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Transistors_OldSowjetAera.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Symbols.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Symbols.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Labels.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Labels.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Housings_TO-78.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Housings_TO-78.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Housings_SOT.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Housings_SOT.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Relays_ThroughHole.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Relays_ThroughHole.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/EuroBoard_Outline.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/EuroBoard_Outline.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Diodes_SMD.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Diodes_SMD.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/NF-Transformers_ETAL.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/NF-Transformers_ETAL.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Choke_Toroid_ThroughHole.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Choke_Toroid_ThroughHole.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Pentawatts.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Pentawatts.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Sockets.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Sockets.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Wire_Connections_Bridges.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Wire_Connections_Bridges.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Housings_DFN_QFN.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Housings_DFN_QFN.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Buttons_Switches_SMD.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Buttons_Switches_SMD.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Capacitors_Tantalum_SMD.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Capacitors_Tantalum_SMD.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/Transistors_SMD.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/Transistors_SMD.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
IO_ERROR: http GET command failed
Cannot get/download Zip archive: ‘https://codeload.github.com/KiCad/TO_SOT_Packages_SMD.pretty/zip/master’
for library path: ‘https://github.com/KiCad/TO_SOT_Packages_SMD.pretty’.
Reason: ‘No such host is known’
from C:/Jenkins/workspace/windows-kicad-msys2-stable/src/kicad-4.0.0-rc2/pcbnew/github/github_plugin.cpp : remote_get_zip() : line 584
Looks like it just needed internet access. New KiCad reads the footprint fine. Problem solved, thanks for the help.
