does kicad 5 feature an autorouter? I also cant get the push and shove to work.
There’s no autorouter in Kicad 5, although we’re considering backporting the old one at some point after a thorough code cleanup. Push & Shove is there, could you tell us more so that we can help you get it to work?
Tom
I am holding Shift for push and shove to work but its not working I tried other buttons also, what is the correct combination for it to work?
There is no special key combination. Go to Menu Route->Interactive Router Settings and select “Shove” mode from the “Mode” group.
Tom
PS. You must use the Modern Toolset for P&S to work (I guess it’s enabled by default in V5).
By Modern Toolset he means press F11 or F12.
There is also an interface to an external autorouter called Freerouting, using Spectra files
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I’ve installed freerouting a handful of times.
This repo:
is the easiest way I’ve come across to do it.
It uses a build tool called “gradle” which greatly simplifies dealing with the Java dependencies.
Interesting link, JDK9 works.
But to be clear, Freerouting is not part of the KiCad project
I hope Kicad doesn’t fork freerouting which is a java app. Kicad needs an autorouter as does any serious layout app. Probably should have priority over ngspice wrapper for simulation.
I suspect most Analog Artisans can live happily without an autorouter but I will concede it can simplify life for some digital designs. And the seat of my pants says that making a truly useful integration of ngspice into KiCAD is a resource-intensive can of worms.
Dale
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I thought a little bit and I think we can integrate freeroute into KiCad as native library. This will no longer require a rewrite to C++ to get it working, but instead could be achieved by compiling the java source to a shared library with exported symbols:
https://www.graalvm.org/docs/reference-manual/aot-compilation/
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Made bug
Totally agree. There are much better tools for simulation out there that are accessible and useful, and when simulating I would prefer to use the best simulator for the task rather than the one that is convenient in a design package. I usually use LTSpice, though not open source does work very well on nearly all platforms. As neat as it might be, I don’t think too many resources should be spent on full NGSpice integration.
Whereas an autorouter is a very handy blunt tool for simple designs when just wanting to get some points connected fast. Though far from perfect, not every PCB has to be specially handcrafted when an autorouter can get the job done well enough and save time. Personally I would love to see greater autorouter integration where it can be controlled completely within KiCad, and come with a default autorouter, while still supporting a robust plugin for alternatives.
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How comprable is kicads original autorouter t freerouting? I found freerouting performed quite well.
It is not, Freerouting is much better
Does that mean improve it past freerouting also?
One fork of Freerouting has been modernised to build on current Java. It still requires work for things like rounded pads and complex pads.
This is nothing to do with the KiCad development team
The issue with freerouting is I have to move vias or silk after the autorouting since they constantly overlap. Wouldn’t happen with a native autorouter.
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