You’re right I didn’t try it, I was simply going by what I read because I have no database ready to test yet. I certainly did not intend to disrespect the plugin or its developer, it sounds fabulous and I can’t wait to try it.
FWIW, I use Freerouting all the time. I haven’t subscribed to the Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche mentality. Frankly, bringing up the debate about autorouters every time is tedious and annoying.
If people want to use the autorouter, help them. If your religion prevents you from using the autorouter, please preach somewhere else.
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Unfortunately it is usually beginners who want to use an autorouter and they don’t realise that freerouting can be fiddly to use
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A nice video about it at KiCon
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Disclaimer: I have the kicad flair because i am in the library team not because i am a developer. So i have not much more insight into how kicad really is developed compared to anybody else following the mailing list for a few years. Meaning everything below is a conjecture by me personally not written in stone rules of kicad development.
I think all of these autorouter things can be summarized as follows. They are nice if they are there. But require a lot of investment in development resources without much payoff. (The more you expand it towards being useful in complex boards the less it will be suited for beginners who typically ask for it the loudest.)
A kicad dev will ask themselves how can they improve kicad more. By providing a simple to use autorouter that only works on boards that are handrouted in minutes anyways (After carefully hand placing the components of course) or by adding rounded and tapered traces that allow kicad to expand into very high frequency (>6GHz) and flexible board applications.
Or compare a bad autorouter to providing an improvement to the interactive router such that it can route a full bus at once. So the differential pair router without limit to the number of traces in parallel. (I think eagle calls this guided bus auto routing. I wonder why?)
And i think the fact that freerouter is there makes this equation worse. As implementing anything that is worse than freerouter makes no sense at all. (Anybody skilled enough to implement an autorouter is also skilled enough to setup freerouter to work with kicad. Remember volunteers need something that motivates them personally.) And getting to a state that is better than freerouter will require a lot of investment. (This will go on until freerouter simply breaks because of lack of maintainance.)
In general i think we will see a part placement optimizer before we will see a true autorouter. (But i could be wrong with that prediction. Maybe somebody reading this will simply take proofing me wrong as their motivation.)
By the way there is only one bug requesting an autorouter and it does not have a lot of heat. So if you want an autorouter fully integrated in kicad again then vote for it https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1797799 (@pointhi even has a basic demonstrator implementation.)
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I believe to define it all for human is long time, but for computer - moment.
Do the schematic have to be designed by human?
I think for many tasks (not all of course) the schematic comes from specifications + some simple assumptions. The simpler example is DCDC supply - you have at many manufacturer pages the tools which just from specification gives you several schematics with information about BOM cost, PCB size, … . Only to chose from.
If the schematic is computer designed then that computer can also get all informations like speed, crosstalk from that schematic and give to second computer/programm to design PCB.
The question is - do they passed EMC tests?
Not everything needs to be EMC tested. (Not even everything that is sold must be tested. And then there is all the stuff that is developed for internal use only. Or demonstrator projects, …) I think @JeffL mentioned that yes they know that there are reasons for not using an autorouter but there are also uncritical jobs like the one explained where it does not matter at all. (Or not enough to care about)
What I have written should not be understand that I think that everything have to be tested. I just wonted to point that need to pass EMC influences possibility of using autorouting.
I think (have no experience) that no autorouter would design 2 layer PCB that way that bottom is whole GND and all tracks are at top (adding 0Rs if needed). I think that for 2 layer PCBs such construction is the simplest way for assure the best return path for all signals what is the basic of good EMC design. Of course not always the best return path is really needed, but I think that when designing PCB you are never 100% sure if in that one situation you can allow for long return path or not. So just to believe that my devices would pass EMC tests I prefere to add some 0R (costs 0,0,0, nothing) than breaking my GND.
When in 2004 (we joined EU) I went to EMC lab first time they said that I am the first one in their history, who when commed first time with his device just passed.
Last EMC directive allows for not testing provided that you can proof in doccumentation that you have good rationale to believe that your device will pass tests (measurement results for very close to that device, calculations, simulations). End then based on that doccumentation you have to sign a CE declaration.
In theory all CE drudgery (including EMC) have to be done before putting anything into service even if done for own use only. I think it is stupid bureaucracy but it is hard to understand directives (and guide books) differently.
If you just occasionally test something that no CE, but for example if you prepare for your own use some tool you will be using for long time then in theory directive applies (don’t assume that I vote for it - I think it is overstatement, I hate all bureaucracy).
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I’m only a hobbyist, but I found it very helpful when trying to route space confined traces. I’d start a trace, right-click and it had a ‘finish with autorouter’ option. Maybe I’m alone on this, but I was often surprised and grateful at the solutions it came up with that I hadn’t thought of.
I did not have great success with asking it to route my entire board, but using it trace at a time, to see another way, is an option I miss. I’ll be trying to figure out how to add the autorouter plugin mentioned above, but hopeful that this type of trace-by-trace assistance might be available in the future as a built-in feature. I also look forward to watching Craig Bishop’s talk posted above.
Thanks again to all who develop this. It was a real joy to meet many of them at KiCon!
I am not using PcbNew yet, but I began to be interested in KiCad when I sow demos of KiCad V4 that can be used as such trace-by-trace routing. I don’t suppose they are gone in V5.
You have to select the right option of puch & showe routing and just select route and it makes automatic connection to the point you show - If you show the end point of connection then you lose the influence on how the route is done but it is done. At least I believe it works that way. I will be able to be more precision in about two weeks.
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