There’s definitely the benefit of the schematic getting less cluttered. The reason that I want the full part number to be shown is to easily find the component in our products+component management system and not having to take the detour of first looking up the part number in the BOM using the Reference. Also, it’s fairly common to have several types of say 10µF capacitors in a schematic and I’d like to see difference in the schematic and not having to refer to the BOM all the time. Otherwise the different types of 10µF capacitors could easily be mixed up, or a new type of 10µF could be added by mistake.
Why you assume you need so many libraries for it? 1n, 10n,100n not collide with each other and they all can be in one library. In my C library I have one SMD element - 0603 with many aliases (10p, 15p,22p,47p,100p, … - just values it happened me to use). I also have there electrolytic capacitors as in their names I just want to see voltage so no problem with having all of them in one library (assuming each C/V combination I use in one case (I use only low ESR electrolytics so need not to mark also that in value).
@Piotr Using only one symbol with aliases you don’t have the possibility to store vendor code, jlcpcb code etc. for each value, right? You have to add these extra info later in the schematic, am i right?
Probably yes. Didn’t checked it.
I don’t need that info at schematic. I add it only into BOM (post-processing using LibreOffice spreadsheet).
Before KiCad I used the rule - element symbol contains all information to specify part. As our default size is 0603 so for those elements I used the shortest symbols (like 1k). In rare cases when I had to use different size element I specified it in its name (1k_4 meant 1k 0402).
Moving to KiCad (I started that process at 2017 and not finished fully yet) I decided that in KiCad the full information would be specified by name+footprint (to have 1k 0402 marked at schematic as 1k). So name+footprint from KiCad is used to find the right element in my spreadsheet and then its full description is copied into BOM.
We are small firm, we can’t guarantee ourselves that each element we specify will be always waiting for us in distributor store so in many situations full description of element means a list of all possible elements to use.
For example for Name=‘Rk32k’, footprint=‘3215’ my full description is:
Wurth: 830009709 (IQD: LFXTAL009709)
Epson: FC-135 32.7690KA
Seico: SC32S-7PF20PPM
Diodes: G83270023
ECS: ECS-.327-7-34B
Abracon: ABS07-166-32.768KHZ
Abracon: ABS07-32.769KHZ-7
And contract manufacturer can use any one of them.
This way, I avoid questions like - we can’t get that item anywhere, what we can use instead. I was asked such questions many times when I used to specify only one element to be used. And answering such questions regarding my project I have done may be 10 years ago disturbed my current work frequently (imagine there are about 20 active projects we order the next series from time to time).
Now, each time I have to find substitute for element I used some time in past I add everything I find into my element description to be used in BOM next time I will use that element.
I didn’t tried if it is possible and how to do it with KiCad as I just have it ready (since ‘always’) in spreadsheet. Why to change something that works and is enough good for me.
I can’t imagine the easier way of looking through my elements database then I have already in spreadsheet.
Unfortunately I didn’t find time to test this today, but I’m almost completely certain that this is absolutely possible in V5.99. Although I believe I’ve read somewhere that it isn’t possible in 5.1.x so that’s probably why you assume this.
I didn’t tried 5.99 (I have Windows 7) but I have read that in 5.99 there are no Aliases. They were replaced by Inheritance. So may be for each such element you can specify everything as for base element.
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