Trick is to print the schematic out, draw red circle around each "decoupling environment" and then group them on the board like that. Then place the connectors where the mechanical design demands them and move the groups where they need to go. Then do the signal paths, then the power routing, then the ground fill. Kicad doesn't make that particularly easy but one of the big errors people make is at schematic capture…
Isn't C312 the wrong way around?
The curve doesn't imply polarization; see C306 on the right.
(I miss resistors that go -v^v^v^-. Why would you use a box? Boxes are for black-box ICs.)
The curve doesn't imply polarization; see C306 on the right. (I miss resistors that go -v^v^v^-. Why would you use a box? Boxes are for black-box ICs.)
Ah, right. I'm used to caps being 2 flat lines for unpolarised.
How are parts libraries? I see that there are a bunch on github maintained by companies like Digikey. It's been a while since I did a pcb design but my last was using jlpcb's online editor and I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to do since they had a massive public parts library. I used to use eagle back in the day but stopped being a fan once it was bought/ruined by autodesk. I hate managing parts libraries.
Managing the files and folders and paths in KiCad should be considered a war-crime. Symbols here, footprints there, 3d models somewhere else entirely by default, would you like to centralize your parts or have them portable per project? Can't have the best of both worlds, sorry! (Edit to add: Oh yeah, any time you click to change a file, any environment variables you had in the path get replaced with the absolute pat…
>(Edit to add: Oh yeah, any time you click to change a file, any environment variables you had in the path get replaced with the absolute path, so things which had been perfectly resilient against path breakage get brittle again automatically!)
Where? Many of the editing fields are supposed to resolve paths back to variables when possible.
I dunno, most PCBs programs I've tried can be summed up to "every single one has weird workflow and you just need to pick one and get used to it"
Seriously, as a kicad dev this is a neverending nightmare of subjective complaining. There was even an old-timer going on a rampage recently on the kicad forums about how PADS was the most superior EDA tool in the world, why aren't we a clone of PADS?? Basically the CAD world is exactly like people arguing over vim vs emacs
Just because it is subjective doesn't mean everything is equal.
Kicad is very powerful but it is also very unintuitive (to the average user). You can't just dismiss that fact because it is subjective.
I want to learn PCB design, mostly with ARM and ESP based designs. How would I learn basics? I know theory part but I really couldn't figure out why they determine which component and which value they have to use. I mean there are resistors, capacitors all over the place but I really want to learn reason behind it. Also I guess there are some basics related power, battery, UART, USB etc. Is there any source that cove…
There are certain usage patterns that you will find all over the place, e.g.: - Current-limiting resistors - The resistor divider (two resistors between e.g. 3.3V and GND. The point between the two resistors will be between 3.3V and 0V, depending on the resistor values. Sometimes you need a certain voltage. For example to bias transistors. - Delays, using a resistor and a capacitor. The values will determine the dela…
"if there is a signal fluctuating between 4.5V and 5.5V before the cap, it'll be -0.5V and 0.5V behind the cap" if there's a resistance to ground after the capacitor. I've accidentally planned an audio amp with input decoupling capacitors, didn't add ground resistors before the capacitors, so if you plug it into an audio output with DC-blocking capacitors but not resistors to ground, the voltage in the middle could be anything.
I long for the day that there is modern, easy to use Open Source CAD application for designing / modelling for 3D printing. FreeCAD exists and while I'm sure it's powerful - it's very clunky to use as the learning curve is quite high for someone that occasionally wants to adjust a model. It it certainly seems like KiCAD is filling that spot for the 2D / electronics side of things. Blender is probably fantastic for mo…
Unfortunately, this doesn't (yet?!) exist. Here's to the future. Are you a student? Military? You may be able to get SolidWorks for cheap. Not what you asked for, but is the best option I've found.
Nah I'm not - I think SolidWorks is also still Windows only but I could be wrong.
I long for the day that there is modern, easy to use Open Source CAD application for designing / modelling for 3D printing. FreeCAD exists and while I'm sure it's powerful - it's very clunky to use as the learning curve is quite high for someone that occasionally wants to adjust a model. It it certainly seems like KiCAD is filling that spot for the 2D / electronics side of things. Blender is probably fantastic for mo…
>> I long for the day that there is modern, easy to use Open Source CAD application for designing / modelling for 3D printing. Solvespace is your friend: https://solvespace.com/index.pl When you learn that completely and then outgrow it, you're probably going back to FreeCAD, or maybe blender with the CAD-sketcher addon.
Looks interesting I'll try both of those out, thank you!
Pretty sure Kicad Services Corp is a big factor in the tighter release cadence. Seth Hillibrand and co have done the best job of “Red Hatting” Kicad and becoming a professional services org that supports Kicad users for a fee. Also helps them guide and drive development of wanted features. I’m convinced there’s no way ODBC support would have happened without it. That’s a feature no hobbyist or maker would care about-…
Not to diminsh KSC as Seth and Wayne are trying to expand things here and there. But ODBC support was by Jon Evans ( https://www.kicad.org/blog/2022/12/Development-Highlight-Dec... ), who is a lead developer but not employed by KSC. He works elsewhere and added it for his own benefit and that of his buddies elsewhere. The tighter release schedule is something everyone wanted, just because v6 got too unwieldy.
Bless Jon Evans, then. That feature was a big roadblock to wider pro usage, IMO.
We said goodbye to Altium Designer when KiCad 6.0 was released. Altium’s focus and resources shifted towards trying to turn AD into a cloud-based tool. As a result the software people actually wanted to use suffered. Every release introduced a plethora of new bugs. Nobody really cared for cloud EDA. Altium thought they would be able to sell the company to Autodesk. This almost happened. In the end that did not happen…
>I can’t see people paying thousands of dollars per year for maintenance on tools like AD. It makes no sense at all.
I started to use Kicad at v5. Some interesting projects in v4 did not load clean.
v6 was released, it had some problems to load v5 projects. And now v7 seems to not load some v6 projects.
If the AD story for support loading old version projects is good then I think they will do fine.
It looks really impressive, seems like it's largely oriented towards PCBs though? Anyone have experience using it for woodworking modeling? Is there a better tool out there for that? I've been using SketchUp, which is "only ok": The modeling for parts is good, but setting it up for spitting out a cut list kind of sucks. Plus, it's like $300/year to buy the version that does cutlists, the web version will not. I use t…
Asking if you can use PCB design tools for modelling woodwork may be one to the strangest things I've read today
I saw some people mentioning that since mail-away PCB houses are so cheap and competent, they'll draft stuff like mounting brackets in KiCAD and have them cut out of FR-4 or aluminized PCB stock.
I'll admit to having done it with keyboard mounting plates-- they ended up significantly cheaper the price of traditional laser/water jet sheet aluminium, but you had to buy five units.