I largely agree with everything you say here. Tracking MPN is not necessary but I was explaining my process of narrowing down internal parts .
With internal numbers the question inevitably comes up “what is a new part” , and the corollary “when do we generate a new part number” and this depends on organization requirements
For example , picking capacitors, do you assign a new internal number for every dielectric class, or can you tolerate just having the value, voltage , and tolerance? These are decisions every engineer needs to make for themselves
Another example, I do not specify new parts for auto grade caps, but others, particulalrly if you are making automotive equipment will have a separate set of internal part numbers for auto grade components.
well when you include the tolerance you kind of already include dielectrics. (The X7R, X5R, … mean how tolerant is the capacitance depending on temperature and voltage changes. It does not say which exact material is used as the dielectric.)
And you are right. It is the decision of the designer or organization what parts of a part specification to include and which can be ignored. (A good example is found in one of my upper responses where i detail which parts of a part number the official lib needs to ignore to stay viable. Some very similar decission will need to be made in every group of engineers. And these rules might even evolve over time or depend on the project.)
Yes your right it is something that varies somewhat depending on what is being done. I don’t actually bother with the tolerance on ceramics but would use the dialectric instead.
Chips are what they are, you have to purchase the correct package so it is just as easy to put the MPN down so that it is clear and is not a repeated nuisance when going from schematic to PCB. Many chips have different pinouts for different packages so i find that the safest method is for the symbol to directly call the footprint so that i do not make any errors in assigning it manually and unneccessarily as I have no choice if the pinout is unique to that package.
With electrolytics I will use specific part numbers as these will have potentially wildly differnt ESR’s and we now have polymer capacitors that although in the same packages are different specs.
Well pedro as is widely accepted there is more than one way to do things, I am simply trying to work out if my way will work and be supported. My way is a good way for many reasons and I don’t like people dismissing it just because it is not their way. I too did not like my way at first but soon realized it’s power. i have already had “an exprience” with the kicad library management when people just changed stuff that i was linked to by default and is one of the reasons I have not used kicad in some time. What i need to be alble to to which seems to be possible is take the existing footprint libraries and call them my new standard and keep a seperate copy and then generate the symbols the way I want them.
Yes pedro for some it does not matter that the full part number is not in the symbol and may not end up on the BOM but TO ME THIS IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT BECASUE THAT IS THE WAY I WANT IT! BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY IN MY EXPERIENCE BOARD ASSEMBLERS WANT IT! I CAN’T CHANGE WHAT MY BOARD ASSEMBLER WANTS FROM ME!
My board assembly is just a board assembler, the clue is in the name, they are not designers and they have no interest at all in my design. They will simply fit exactly what I tell them to fit where I tell them to fit it. If I do not tell them the exact part number to buy they will stop production until I tell them because they have no interest in making 100’s of boards wrong and be the ones to blame because they assumed the part i wanted.
All of this is possible and described in great detail in the FAQ articles found in this forum. See for example Library management in KiCad version 5.
Nobody here ever argued against this being useful. What we intended to show is that there is more than one way to achieve this. We showed both ways how to do it fully within kicad using fully specified symbols and also how to do it externally in a part management tool by using so called house part numbers (or primary keys) to interface between that system and kicad.
And what i really miss is you at least partially owning up and saying sorry for stuff that you demonstrably had wrong. Especially the stuff you had against wayne. He is definitely not without faults (nobody is) but the ones you tried to put onto him are simply wrong.
And on a side note…
You come over as a somewhat entitled, condescending guy.
Get something into your head - we’re mostly users here, who try to help other users. This is not a paid-for software, nor do we have to sit here and play support for other people if they don’t adhere to a minimum of decency and friendliness as none of us draws a salary here.
If you have a problem with the way the software is planned to go ahead, take it up with the developers on their turf, the mailing list.
I am not condecending but am having to constantly repeat myself as words are put into my mouth, I am simply trying to learn the options available and have pointed out what has been said. But everyone on here is so defensive it is impossible to have a discussion about anything unless it is what people want to hear.
If having to repeat myself because what I say is being ignored and that is deemed condecending then I am sorry.
If i were to switch to Kicad I would be making a regular donation. I have to pay for what I use now (CS) so I have no problem contributing to a free tool. But I need to make certain it will work for me or that I am able to work with it, whichever way you prefer. I have used various tools over the years and I am well forewarned that moving to a new tool does take some time in adapting.
And that would be very nice of you, but still, we are just user, we don’t get any money even if you donate, moreover even if you donate, that money doesn’t entitles you to anything, after all it is a donation. Of course you can always try to get a willing developer to do a custom job for the right amount of money.
To be honest i have no idea what you really want from us other than arguing about the question “Is open source viable as a concept at all?”
Every-time we show that you where wrong with any assumption you simply switch topic without ever even acknowledging that the information was provided. Which resulted in this thread being very convoluted.
i am well aware of that, I am just saying that I am not rocking up and wanting to make money off a free tool. As for forum users, it is nice of you to hang out here and I really came for opinions etc, I am not expecting detailed support just suggestions. If you feel that way about helping people or just talking them, um, just don’t respond to the topic? I am not demanding anything of anyone. I came here on a positive note about the progress of KiCad and I always had an open mind about it’s future development but it seems I have landed in a very tight knit and defensive community.
Erm, don’t look at me, look at whoever broke this off as a seperate thread and did not announce it. It started as a comment in another thread and appears to have been isolated, hence you are wondering what the question was…
The moderators routinely move discussions to their own threads if it goes more or less offtopic. It’s always a subjective decision but there’s nothing personal. The whole forum is much easier to read, follow and use if threads are tightly on one topic at the time. In my opinion you kind of own this thread now and can continue with offtopic or ask moderators to move offtopic discussion elswhere if you wish.
The forum software automatically gives you an announcement if your post is moved to another thread. There’s no need to explicitly announce it manually.
Yes i understand the moderating rational I am a moderator myself (not here) but as this stands it’s a bit of a pointless thread as it’s lost it’s context. I see that the original topic is referenced but it’s a bit hard to follow. Having had a check through I have found the notification. Usually on forums I prefer email notifications, I’ll have a dig in the settings.
I think i get where part of the confusion here comes from. I just watched the panel of kicon and wayne did use too few words to describe a complex topic where he himself got a bit confused. (I think the main problem was as i suspected above the use of the word atomic instead of specifying it as “fully specified symbol”)
This led me to write up my personal definition of the 2 (or 3) possible workflows in kicad as a short (ok might have been wordy) mail to the mailing list. I am sure all devs are aware of the workflows. But they might not know all the details about any particular feature as they really have other things to worry about. (In this case it showed. I think all wayne wanted to say was “we do not want to remove your beloved feature”. I assume he did not intent to say “i do not believe the other workflow to be invalid”. Even if it could be interpreted that way if taken out of context and without background knowledge about his past actions.)
So what i was wondering having watched the video is that he seemed to not understand why it would be done any other way than the old fashioned way and from what I understand he effectively runs kicad as he guides it’s direction and decides what edits to put in. I am still exploring what is available obviously both ways of working can run in parallel as things stand and i hope it stays that way.
As things are at the moment a component symbol that already points to a footprint just goes through to the PCB but if a footprint is not pre-assigned it can be done in the transfer phase manually which is perhaps better than the whole thing constantly failing like other packages do because they can’t find an assigned footprint.