the issue is in kicad source code, not in StepUp, I already use this 
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Good point, I can away change the default location to be my project instead of the kicad project. That change made it much better for me, as the project I’m working on has many files which I got to work on during a snow day.
I made a bunch of progress and I figured I’d share a picture and a link for some shameless self promotion. See below 3D in FreeCad. We have had several people 3D print enclosures or enclosure accessories. This model will likely help those folks make even better enclosures.
This board is for internal engine fuel and spark control. There is a wiki page about it found here.
https://rusefi.com/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:Hardware_Frankenso_board
Thanks for the efforts with StepUp.
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that’s the reason why StepUp has raised
PS:
- you can configure StepUp to use bounding boxes or even to skip module filtering by height or volume… that will help in speeding up the mechanical process… (please refer to cheat sheet)
- you may consider to switch to FC0.17 (it is in code freezing, so it is near to be the next stable release) … FC0.17 is offering multi-threading in loading STEP models and cutting the PCB holes … you could see a boost in loading the board
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I have hardware drama’s FC0.17 doesn’t support my version of windows any more. At some point I need to get a larger HDD, then turn this HDD into a virtual drive. At that point I could start using a more recent version of Ubuntu, and then when ever I need some of the Windows software on this drive, I could boot the virtual drive. The only reason that has not happened yet, is that life keeps getting in the way. So I endure slower hardware. I agree FC0.17 is a significant improvement.
Hi there, StepUp is awesome and I’ve been using it for more than a year now
I got the latest version and installed it on free cad 0.17 on both windows and linux, and it runs smoothly
on my Mac I’m having some issues for with some library (probably relates to PySide??), here’s the log
FC Version 017-13519
kicad StepUp version 7.1.8.0
tolerance on vertex applied
applying Materials to Shapes
your home path is /Users/sherifeid
ksu file 'ksu-config.ini' exists
materials section present
turntable section present
compound section present
docking section present
constraints section present
font section present
useGridOrigin option present
prefix3D_2 found kicad/share/modules/packages3d/
3D models prefix=C:\Program Files\KiCad\share\kicad\modules\packages3d\
3D models prefix2=kicad/share/modules/packages3d/
pcb color=0.0,0.298,1.0,lightblue (0,76,255)
blacklist modules
volume 0 heigh 0
bounding box option 0 whitelist
placement board @ useBaseOrigin #place board @ 0,0,0
idf_to_origin True
last fp path
last brd path
virtual models addVirtual
export fusing option nofuse #default
minimum drill size 0.0mm
export to STEP True
enable materials True
turntable False
compound allowed True
docking mode right
constraints mode all
kicad StepUp version 7.1.8.0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/sherifeid/Library/Preferences/FreeCAD/Macro/kicad-StepUp-tools.FCMacro", line 16461, in <module>
singleInstance()
File "/Users/sherifeid/Library/Preferences/FreeCAD/Macro/kicad-StepUp-tools.FCMacro", line 16424, in singleInstance
for i in app.topLevelWidgets():
<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'>: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'topLevelWidgets'
any ideas on how to fix it?
Hi,
please consider to use the StepUp WB instead of the simple Macro.
The WB is also available through FreeCAD Tools Menu ‘Addons manager’ as 'kicadStepUpMod’
This is the best way to get updates from StepUp
Have a look also to StepUp CheatSheet for some detail of the new features.
Hi @maui
Running kicad StepUp version 8.4.0.2 on FreeCAD 0.18
When “loading KiCad Board .kicad_pcb”, I have two missing models:
missing models
C:/Program Files/KiCad5/share/kicad/modules/packages3dE:/Mes documents/KiCad_v5/rg-5000-like/libs/rg-5000-like.pretty/MiniCircuits_TT1224.step
C:/Program Files/KiCad5/share/kicad/modules/packages3dE:/Mes documents/KiCad_v5/rg-5000-like/libs/rg-5000-like.pretty/GDT_EC90X.step
enabling ReadShapeCompoundMode
${KIPRJMOD}/libs/rg-5000-like.pretty/MiniCircuits_TT1224.wrl
error: resetreset values of scale to (xyz 1 1 1)
${KIPRJMOD}/libs/rg-5000-like.pretty/GDT_EC90X.wrl
error: resetreset values of scale to (xyz 1 1 1)
thread ViewFitting
I actually don’t have the .step files for these two components, but the .wrl files are present in the E:\Mes documents\KiCad_v5\rg-5000-like\libs\rg-5000-like.pretty directory
- What are the “
resetreset values of scale” errors ? - The $(KIPRJMOD) variable substitution looks weird in the error message regarding the .step files.
what did you setup the footprint to use?
You should scale the 3d model instead of using kicads hacky scaling option.
And yes there is a word duplication in the error message. should probably be
error: reset values of scale to (xyz 1 1 1)
wrl is unusable for mechanical design as it is only a surface mesh not a true 3d model. (Short version: wrl is for pretty pictures and step for engineers)
What do you mean ? The board is looking good with the 3D viewer of KiCad, but the complete path to the .step files indicated in the error message looks messy:
C:/Program Files/KiCad5/share/kicad/modules/packages3dE:/Mes documents/KiCad_v5/rg-5000-like/libs/rg-5000-like.pretty/MiniCircuits_TT1224.step
(It looks like $KISYS3DMOD and $KIPRJMOD are concatened)
So, if understand correctly, the step files are required to be get these components displayed in FreeCAD, and the wrl files are useless / ignored ? In that case, why these wrl are mentioned in the StepUp log if they are ignored anyway ?
For legacy reasons all official footprints are setup to use wrl files in kicad internally. Both the kicad step exporter and stepup ignore the file ending and substitute it with step.
@Efcis
StepUp is already giving all the answers:
- you are missing the3D STEP models MiniCircuits_TT1224.step & GDT_EC90X.step
- you have used scaling values for your WRL models MiniCircuits_TT1224.wrl, GDT_EC90X.wrl
it is strongly suggested to use ONLY scale values to (xyz 1,1,1) … they will be ignored during the mechanical conversion.
So, if understand correctly, the step files are required to be get these components displayed in FreeCAD, and the wrl files are useless / ignored ?
Both StepUp and KiCAD accept STEP or WRL as 3D models.
You can use WRL for KiCAD (better aesthetic result) and when you will export your board to MCAD both StepUp or KiCAD will get the file name and search for the same name with STEP or STP extension to build the mechanical counterpart.
EDIT: this procedure should be mentioned in the pcbnew user manual because it is a big issue for new users.
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@maui - I was reminded of this by the recent Solidworks post. There is a potential naming issue when using StepUp to create a STEP file for Solidworks.
If you only import 1 board into an assembly, all is well. Adding another board breaks once the assembly is saved / reopened. (Wrong PCB, parts in air because the PCB outline is wrong, etc)
The mechanical engineer and I spent a bit trying to track down the issue.
Apparently, Solidworks assumes that any entity with the same name is identical, even if they come from different files. So once a second PCB created by StepUp is added, one will have at least the wrong board outline, and the wrong tracks/silkscreen (if imported using StepUp), because in both cases the PCB / track / silk bodies have the same name.
The fix appears to be adding a unique prefix (I’ve used the board P/N) to the part / body names, minus the part models - they appear to be unique enough in the first place, since they include the footprint id.
Hopefully this saves someone else several hours of frustration…
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thanks for the feedback
would you please elaborate it a bit more?
Are you importing a STEP assembly generated by ksu and then adding an other STEP assembly by ksu into SolidWorks, you get a mixed assembly?
In FreeCAD for an object we have Name and Label… Label is directly visible, Name is a property ‘hidden’… I don’t have access to Sw to have the counter part assignment in Sw…
Would you please post a screencast of your issue?
Yes, I gave things another shot after posting this.
1 - Create an assembly.
2 - Add board one to the assembly, all is well.
3 - Add board two and thing break. In this case, the part models from board two, correctly positioned in relation to each other, showed up on the PCB from board one.
Assuming the “Label” is what shows up in the FreeCAD model tree, i.e the PCB shows up as a body called “Pcb”, under a part called “Board_Geoms”, then this is also what shows up in the model tree and gets used as the part name in Solidworks. It seems to treat each body or part in the imported STEP file as a separate part.
I’ll see what I can do with photos or a screencast after the holidays - I’m off until Jan 2 and don’t have access to SW from home.
Probably in Sw there are options to choose in which way you want to add/merge a STEP file (assembly) into a document… May be this can be solved just tweaking those options…
In FC if you just open a KiCAD board with kSU, and then you will open a new one, two different docs will be created… copying the second board into the first doc FC will automatically adapt the Names avoiding identical Name for the doc objects…
Then if you will export Board_1 and Board_2 from the same doc, you shouldn’t have any interference with the two Pcbs in Sw, also within your actual import setting.
Thanks, when I’ll have more data, I will be able to see how I could avoid your issue…
When i use my KiCAD-PCB Models in SW i first open the exported Step as a Multi-body part, then combining it to one solid chunk. If i remember correctly, this can be a pain because all parts are floating above the PCB. I think a layer is not imported correctly. On easy shapes it’s a quick fix, create a sketch on the pcb surface and extrude it like .2mm into the direction of the parts. After that you can combine everything. That said i haven’t used a multi pcb setup in SW so far.
I have a valid license for SW19, let me know if i can help somehow.
@gsocker
I’ve updated StepUp WB adding the following features:
- allowing Opening or Importing a kicad_pcb file inside a FreeCAD file
- generating uid for pcb & containers-
- full support fo App::Part Links
- full Hierarchy allowed for importing & assembling a pcb
- pcb as solid instead of compsolid
- multiple pcb allowed
- apply Transparency option (from .wrl model materials)
- added a warning message for GridOrigin missing on pcbnew file
Please update the WB and test if your issue is solved.
.
@Detzi I haven’t received any similar issues on SW…
Anyway, would you please update the WB and test if your issue is solved?
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Sorry @maui i’d totally forgotten you 
I do not use the workbench or am not aware of that. What i do is i click on File->Export->Step in PCBnew (Kicad Version: (5.1.4)-1, release build ) the output is this file:
sample.7z (448.1 KB) i had to compress it, it’s bigger than the filesize limit.
If you look closely you can see that there is a gap between components and PCB presumably its the copper layer thats missing. I don’t think its tied to solidworks either since Freecad does display the same thing:
Then this might be the wrong thread to post to. After all this is a thread for announcing improvements made with the freecad extension “kicad-stepup”. That extension can directly import a kicad pcbnew file. (You do not go through the export stp step within kicad when using stepup)