Hi,
I’m converting some Molex Microfit3 from molex website, to wrl using solidworks.
Can someone give some tips to do the conversion?
In the “3D Settings”, on scale, need to pu 0,4 or 10, to be in same size of footprint.
Best regards
Wouldn’t it be faster to recreate them in SW?
As for factor… I think in FreeCAD it was something about 1/2.54
Te StepUp tool may be usefull for you:
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As it happens, I converted a Molex Minifit today ! I used FreeCAD, it seemed to work ok.
The scale required is 0.39, I guess 0.4 is close enough. Also needed a bit of rotating and shifting.
The new 3D dialog will be very useful…
it is possible to use StepUp tools to align the model to footprint directly in FreeCAD
the conversion with the latest release is even easier than in the video (just a button to click)…
@bobc @jneiva
you may have a try 
the process to align is in MCAD environment, so it is possible to detect collision and check other mechanical features
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To be honest I found the StepUp tool quite confusing to use and not very useful.
sorry… if you just follow the video tutorial it should be quite clear…
anyway thanks for testing
Well, that’s another thing, I don’t really like video tutorials, too hard to follow.
[quote=“Andy_P, post:9, topic:3942”]
I found it confusing, too, and I think it’s because it’s trying to do everything and it’s not quite clear how to do it.[/quote]
@Andy_P
thank you for your suggestion…
I would accept any improved version of the kicad StepUp tools starter Guide (manual) if you would mind to contribute…
More then 10 thousand people have downloaded my tools in one year and half, so I think any constructive suggestion would be useful …
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Wow, well done !! That’s quite a user base.
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The VRML files are not really useful for anything other than visualization. The development version of kicad currently has the “OCE Plugin” so you can see STEP and IGES files in kicad:
http://downloads.kicad.org/windows/nightly
There is also a tool to translate the kicad_pcb file to a STEP assembly but this hasn’t been merged with the main code branch yet.
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Of course not, nor did I claim it did.
It does show 10k+ thought it worth at least trying.
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I think that is exactly what I found.
e.g In trying to follow chapter 11 in the “starter guide” PDF, between Figure 7 and 8 the model magically appears. First I tried opening a WRL file, that didn’t work, then I tried opening a STEP file, didn’t work either. Now I am stumped. Then I thought “maybe I need to Import?”. That worked. Why is that not in the step by step?
I’m not a spelling nazi, really I am not. But the format of the guide is a mess. Sentences without capital or full stop, random bold, italic, bold italic… what does “ausilium” even mean?
To actually nudge the part, I have to keep entering values into the text box. This is almost as tedious as using KiCad to do it.
So now I have the model aligned, what do I do next? I have no idea, the guide stops.
I think the interesting thing about that is that it shows there is a demand for better 3D model handling in KiCad. Most of the devs might not think the 3D aspect of KiCad is very important, but clearly there are a lot of users interested.
In fact yesterday I was trying to figure out how to export a CAD model so we could discuss packaging of the board. My colleague was really impressed what I could do with a free tool in 30 minutes, rather than waiting for the CAD dept with the $10,000 design package. In the end though, I had to dump the 3D view as a PNG.
pag.11 kicad StepUp starter guide:
if you dare to learn FreeCAD, Assembly2 is the Graphic tool to use (my tools are fully compatible with Assembly2 FreeCAD Workbench)
http://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/index.php?title=External_workbenches
pag.9 kicad StepUp starter guide:
may be this forum topic may also help
Anyway, more then the guide, it is worth to follow the forum (there are many helping people here )
https://forum.kicad.info/search?q=step
and may be less then 7min video tutorial would save you a lot of time
Company firewalls are frequently set to block video, so pdf tutorials are far more useful at work
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As @cbernardo wrote,
it is possible already to load and view STEPs on KiCad (rendered with default materials).
Still not possible to export.
KiCAD need more developers to proper support 3D features.
Users can express their wishes on https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad
but without eggs there are no omelette 
for those interested in video tutorial, but not allowed to go to YouTube, I uploaded the two video as mp4 Tutorial @sourceforge.net project site
KicadStepUp-Export-STEP-Tutorial.mp4
KicadStepUp-Align-export-STEP-Tutorial.mp4
Maurice
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