I hereby certify that I am not simply asking someone else to design a footprint for me.
This is an auto-generated message that is in place on the “footprints” section of the KiCad.info forum. If I remove it and ask for a footprint to be designed anyway, I understand that I will be subject to forum members telling me to go design my own footprint or referring me to a 3rd party footprint site.
It doesn’t sound like you have a strong reason to use the Mouser footprint, so I’d instead suggest using the KiCad library footprint for an 0805 package capacitor. In general, KiCad already provides tried and tested footprints for most passive and many active packages. IMO nice to get used to using those (and saving out/modifying them as needed).
The Mouser footprint appears (on first glance) to be usable, just not a standard IPC density. You are doing a good thing by double checking every footprint before you use it, but unless you are building a commercial product you probably don’t need to worry about using a particular density footprint style.
I also find KiCad’s own libraries of a quite good quality, and If the parts I want are in them, I always use them (but I do extra checks). The rounded corners used in KiCad’s libraries are also an IPC recommendation. The lasers with which the apertures in the solder paste stencils are usually have some radius, and they can never make sharp corners. That means you will get slightly different results from different manufacturers. And apparently, there is also less paste sticking to the corners, so paste deposit on the PCB is more reliable.
And on top of that, a footprint for such simple parts are not very critical. Just have a look at that table you posted for the three “density levels”. That is three different pad sizes for each footprint, and all of them work.
On top of that, such tables (and KiCad’s and other libraries too) are always some kind of generalization of guidelines and “what usually works best”. And on top of that, it is quite common that PCB manufacturers tweak settings in gerber files for different reasons.
I would suspect that such a common element is well tested. That said, always verify yourself. Once you have, stick it in a personal library of verified parts you use.
It’s also worth noting that for stuff like 0805 passives have 2 options available and one of them is a ‘Hand soldering’ footprint which is slightly bigger to make it easier to solder
Hi, it is really good to see the detailed response from your side. Please confirm to me what is the recommended density level I should follow maximum, median, minimum? I know this is subject to my design and board space but any specific recommendation. For example - use median land pattern for all the components is recommended!
It is not possible to give general advise for that. KiCad does not even make a distinction between those density levels. I suggest you just forget about those density levels and start with the default KiCad libraries. And later, when you have more experience you can make a better judgement on what best fits your next project.
One mayor issue, is that it takes more effort to design a dense PCB. It may also need more layers.
The 0805 part you mention in your opening post is also quite big. I guess that 0603 is much more common these days, and most of industry is shifting towards 0402 or even smaller. smaller parts are (marginally) cheaper to produce in bulk, simply because they require less material, but this presumes that production equipment (from making the parts themselves to PnP machines) have advanced to a sufficient level of magic that the base materials and their processing are the cost defining factor.
For myself, I see no reason to go smaller then 0603. both 0805 and 0603 fit nicely on perf board for making hobby prototypes. I have about 100.000 (or more, maybe double?) resistors and capacitors in 1206 form factor, but they are a bit of a nuisance to use because they are too big for perfboard, and there is also no nee to go that big for DIY assembly.
Got it.
I select 0805 incase if I need to change any caps so I can do so by hand soldering. This is a DC-DC buck converter design that I am design using TI chip LMR51450SDRRR. The design is verified by TI tech support but I change the SMD parts from 0402 to 0805.
Problem:
I try find Capacitor library inside KiCAD 7 but there is no part except one basic C. Do you know any library source if I can download from KiCAD resources?
There is no need for a library for capacitors (or resistors) in KiCad.
KiCad does have a whole lot of footprints for capacitors and resistors, so you just use the simple schematic symbol for a resistor or capacitor, and then assign one of the many footprints to it. This is the normal way of working with KiCad.
Some people go the database driven way. In that case the database you have to set up yourself becomes the source of parts (combination of symbol, footprint and other meta data such as the value and voltage rating, etc). But that is another topic.
