Non-traditional use of KiCad for water treatment system design and simulation

Gee, I feel like an old fogey singing songs around a campfire to the accompaniment of a ukelele about how good the days when we used KiCad to design just PCBs were. :crazy_face:

I would have used the phrase non-mainstream. :wink:

Don’t mind me, I actually think it’s quite creative to put tools to alternate uses. :+1:

Yeah; well, it’s easier to stuff around with what you think you know rather than yet another steep learning curve. :grinning:

I have no idea.

But from what i remember from the EE related libs, i was happy with what i found and what i was allowed to do with some additional scripting.

learning E-plan comes with a full 5-day course. I wanted to learn Fritizing once, I still don’t know how to use that program.

Instead I think I should make more custom symbols for KiCad for all the manuals I am about to make :smiley: That I know how to do :smiley:

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Another hobby of mine is making Archtop Guitars and when I make Pickguard’s for other players (meaning, I don’t need to use FreeCAD for Milling G-Code) then, I use Kicad to generate the Gerber and use CopperCAM to generate the G-Code.

I looked around for ISO-1219 stuff that wasn’t behind a paywall and found what looked like a good set of example symbols at https://www.emerson.com/documents/automation/european-catalog-solenoid-valve-iso-1219-symbols-asco-en-6867428.pdf. Holy Smokes! They reminded me of the ANSI symbols for logic gates:-( No wonder they seemed exotic. It seems like ISO-1219 is focused on hydraulic/pneumatic control valves, which do have a bewildering array of options they tried to allow for in the symbols (e.g. spring return, manual override, direct acting, pilot control, 3-position multiport/multiway valves with arbitrary connectivity between ports depnding on position, …). What I would think of as a simple 2x2 crossbar switch that you might use to control forward/reverse motion of a piston turns into a monster.

Fortunately, I’m not designing a bulldozer hydraulic control system. The most complicated part I might need is a motorized temperature mixing valve (assuming I can find one at a reasonable price). So I can stick wth the “simpler” symbols and use named paramaters (some with text values) to clarify their function. Even then, it seems like I’ll need several dozen basic shapes with variations for things like manual/solenoid/pilot/motor control, built-in limit switches, position indicators, etc.

Including the complete hydraulic/electronic control loop(s) in the design and simulation has always been in the back of my mind so including the electrical control/feedback ports in the symbols seems to make sense.

That does seem to be pretty abusive (and creative):slight_smile: I’ve played around with FreeCAD as an alternative to OpenSCAD for but it just hasn’t “clicked” with me. I sense that once I get into phase lock with the “workbench” concept then all sorts of things become easy.

Perhaps you’ve seen my this (my Milling Video… and this discussion/post…. Even though I can and have used FreeCAD for milling PCB’s, I much prefer using CopperCAM for PCB’s… very easy and excellent user interface.

I run CopperCAM on my Mac using PlayOnMac (there’s a PlayOnLinux, too)