Getting Start KiCAD 5.0

[Rene_Poschl]

@mikekicad

I have not used the KiCAD before, but I know it is very careful for the libraries.

That assumption might do you no good. KiCad is quite tolerant with what you do with it. There are processes there that should protect your project. And even if you break it temporarily you can salvage it. (This might however require somebody expirienced.)

@mikekicad

He worked there for years with the old Kicad version. I questioned myself why he upgraded new version before he left, and what for?

Version 5 has many new nice features. A lot of things make the live of the designer easier. In a company such a decision should however be taken as a team. All designers should be on the same version of kicad. (Or any other tool for that matter)

@mikekicad

My co-workers (software) who worked there with him tried to install Kicad 4.0.2 on different computer and it still has something else for libraries again.

4.0.2 might not be the best idea either. Version 4.0.7 is fully compatible with version 4.0.2 but has a lot less bugs!

@mikekicad

To separate from work, at home, I installed kicad 5.0.x in my fresh computer, so far it worked fine. To test, I uninstalled kicad 5.0.x and install kicad 4.0.7.
I created new circuit and everything is fine until I assign footprint for components. It popped up load error: “Errors were encountered loading footprint”. If I come back with kicad 5.0.x, it will have error again. So, I seem not go backward neither forward.

This might be because you have version 5 libs and try to run version 4. Others already told you that version 5 has different libraries than version 4. It also manages symbol libs differently. So there is another point where you could introduce an error.

@mikekicad

That’s reason why I don’t want to touch kicad at work.

Noble idea but maybe a bit extreme. You can not really destroy something as long as you do not touch a project. So use company time to learn your tools. (To be honest they should be the ones to provide you with training to do your job.)
So sit down and go through tutorials, experiement with the tools and test your assumptions. (This is how one learns stuff. Not by being afraid of breaking things.)

@mikekicad

I think that if I know how to copy my current libraries and how to import to Kicad, it might work.

That is different depending on which version you use. For footprint libs we have this stuff documented in this tutorial: How can i install a specific version of the footprint library? Be aware that the default setup of version 4 uses on demand online libraries (Which you probably do not want in a company setting.)

In version 5 the symbol and footprint libs are managed in a very similar manner. (The tool is called the symbol lib manager instead of footprint lib manager and found in the symbol editor instead of the footprint editor. Everything else is the same.)

Symbol libs in version 4 are a completely different story. There is not really a place where you can setup libs globally. The nearest feature to a global library management is working with the template project. (The lib setup is copied to new projects from the template.)

@mikekicad

However, I feel the Kicad libraries are not consistent for all versions.

Now we would need to know how you define consistent. I assume you mean compatible or even stable. Lets look at both these definitions.

First we need to define minor and major releases. A minor release for kicad can be identified by a change to the last two version number digits. So for example 4.0.7 is the 8th minor release in the major version 4 series. (4.0.0, 4.0.1, …, 4.0.7)
After 4.0.7 no further minor releases for version 4 will be made. So the next release is a major update. This one got the version number 5.0.0. An update to this version is 5.0.1 and we expect 5.0.2 to follow soon. There will be a kind of in the middle update shortly with version 5.1.0. this one can still be considered as a minor update with regards to libraries and project files. (No change to the file formats, only the graphical interface changes)

All kicad files can be worked on by all minor releases within a major release series. So this means they are fully compatible with each other. Version 5 can open any version 4 library. So this means kicad is forward compatible in this regard. However a version 4 can not open version 5 libs if version 5 used newly introduced features. So the libs are only backwards compatible if the designer does not use any new features. We have a version 4 backport of the version 5 library available

Now lets look at stability. A library can be considered stable if no (unnecessary) changes are made to existing symbols or footprints. Sadly the version 4 series of the libraries can not be considered stable.
This changed with version 5. Here we take care that the libs are stable.
Even stability does not necessary mean that working with two different version of the lib can not lead to problems. Adding new stuff to the lib is after all permitted in my definition of stability. So if you add a symbol from the newer version of the lib to a schematic then the guy with the older version might not have the symbol at all.