I am finished with the EAGLE_PLUGIN, and I am suspending my involvement with KiCad until my time can be funded.

This probably means goodbye, after 5 years and $310,000 donated by my employer, SoftPLC Corporation, to the project.

My suggestions to users of the project, is that you find a way to fund the work. And until that happens, be sure and give credit and thanks where it is due, not to some nebuluous "software dispenser in the sky" called "the developers". Name names, and understand that software is not free.

Each of you are the recipient of a portion of SoftPLC's donation. There are only about 3 or 4 major financial backers of this project, and I dare say that SoftPLC corporation was number 2.


In case you are curious about what I do in my day job, I write factory automation software, and do it very well. My company has about 5% of the U.S. electric power grid power production under control of our flagship product named SoftPLC Corporation. This is all hydroelectric power generation, and we recently were again selected to be the controller for a retrofit application for the largest power plant in the United States, also hydro. This is a complete replacement of all controllers and installation of SoftPLC controllers to run the entire Grand Coulee dam. It is now operational fully on SoftPLCs.





Additionally, I am starting a new company now:




which is going to sell quad-copters and drone technology. Naturally we will be all over the flight control software. Please please please watch the website over the next few weeks. And if you feel compelled to give back a little, buy something for yourself there, or your kid or grand-kids.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed contributing, but to be candid, I was always a fish out of water. I am a capitalist, not a communist doner, so the fit was never right. And I am hell to work and with, because of very high expectations relative to software designs, so maybe this is a good thing for the other developers and maybe the project as a whole.


Dick





------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

For the pins it work well, but with the artwork KiCAD had some problem:

On all parts it places the same artwork. I call it a bug...

Roland

--- In kicad-users@..., Ivica Kvasina <kvasina@> wrote:

creating different artwork for each part is a problem.??
every time i change one part, change is applied to all of them.
i did try various settings incl. edit pins per part but so far this is still frustrating.

well i don't know about easily:
creating same parts is not a problem.??
creating parts where pins are in different position from one part to next is not a problem
creating different artwork for each part is a problem.??
every time i change one part, change is applied to all of them.
i did try various settings incl. edit pins per part but so far this is still frustrating.



________________________________
From: Andy Eskelson <andyyahoo@...>
To: kicad-users@...
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 4:24:19 AM
Subject: Re: [kicad-users] Mixed part types with multi-part components?


??
It can be done fairly easily.
I created a relay symbol that had the coil and contacts as sep parts.

In the component properties you need to set the number of parts, I expect
that you have done this for other parts you have created.

Then you can start editing the component. In the top toolbar there are
two boxes, one to select the part A, B, C and so on. then a box for the
name. Next to that box is a button "edit pins per part or body style"

Click this so that it is active. this setting allows you to use
different designs and pins for each sub part.

If I remember correctly there was a small problem in getting things to
edit correctly, and what I did was to just put a single line on all
parts (with the edit pins button unselected, then switch it back on and
I could then edit things as normal. I've not tried to do this with my
current version of kicad, BZR 3256, so that little problem may have
been sorted out by now.

Andy

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:33:21 -0000
"acousmatique" <acousmatique@...> wrote:

Arg... this is driving me nuts.

For the past two weeks, I have buckled down to create the parts libraries I need. This seems to be a nightmare for every program I try, like they assume the parts you need are already there.

I have made some multi-part profiles which have turned out well. The problem seems to be when I am making a component which has multiple parts, but they aren't all the same. For instance, tonight I am trying to make a big library of transistor and diode arrays that I use. Now I am trying to enter a device (THAT 340) which has two NPN transistors, and two PNP transistors. I define pins 1-3 as NPN for Part A, but then when I define pins 5-7 as PNP for Part B, I go back and it has overwritten the PNP for PART A also! I cannot imagine any reason why this would happen. They have their own pin numbers! If I change the part for pins 5-7 why would it assume that I am changing pins 1-3 which I have already done?

The only workaround I can think of for now is just using a monolithic block and naming the pins for the whole device. It's easy, but it makes the schematics messy. Any ideas? Am I missing something here?

Thanks!



------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

Hello guys,

one of my workers had the idea of using small (like 0.5" x 0.5" / 1cm x 1cm) open copper ground planes on the edges of our boards for setting trimmers and testing the PCBs.

Right now we always have to find a 'good' leg of a resistor etc. where we can clip our GND-clip of the oscilloscope to and sometimes this is a really shi**y procedure so that in the end you have to solder small pieces of copper wire to a GND pin of another component to clip your crocodile clip to.

Our next run of PCBs should be SMD anyway so he had this idea. What do you think about that? Good or bad idea?

Thanks for your time and I'm very open to any suggestions here!
christian

?

when you load the netlist you will get all the components in a pile in
the corner of the board. You have to move the components to the positions
you want, then you can start laying out the tracks

I assume that you have got this far.

When you say that DRC said there were no connections in a lot of places,
that usually means that you need to place a junction to force the
connection.

Other things that can cause problems is that you might "miss" the
conection point. If the pad and the track are not EXACTLY aligned you can
get this sort of problem.

Usually magnetic tracks is enabled which cures most of these types of
problem.
preferences>general
magnetic pads
magnetic tracks

enable for "when creating" this is the default.

If you are trying to find the place where different via sizes and tracks
are defined, then that has moved. select design rules from the main menu
bar and then on design rules icon Select global design rules tab, and
there you can define whatever custom track and via sizes you want. Once
you do that, they will become available for use.

Hope that's what you were asking for.

If not a bit more info is needed.

Andy

On Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:54:48 -0000
"tmortus" <tom_mort@...> wrote:

> I'm slowly working my way in learning how to create a circuit board with
> kicad. So far I have created the schematic, tested it and created a
> netlist with eeschema and I've made some modules.and assigned them to
> the corresponding component in eeschema.
> I'm trying to now create a pcb. I have selected read netlist from the
> pcb design screen, Everything looked OK to me, but, when I ran design
> tools check it said a lot of the pads had no connection. I can see
> though that they have lines going from them.
> I then thought I should consult the tutorial
> <> ad_Tutorial.pdf&pli=1> . In the tutorial it says to click on
> "Dimensions" -> "Tracks and Vias".. It shows this menu
> item between Preferences and Miscellaneous on the menu bar. The menu
> bar I have has File, Edit, View, Place, Preferences, Tools, Design Rules
> and Help.
> Can someone tell me what the pads are unconnected means and how to fix
> it and let me know there the Dimensons -> Tracks and Vias is located???

?

Eagle offers the options for PCB services to distribute design rule and CAM jobs files. I've been chatting with the person who runs the DorbotPDX PCB service??in hopes of getting KiCAD listed as an option on their website along with Eagle. I know they don't need specific instructions for KiCAD to work with the service, but I just figure if there are some KiCAD specific instructions out there it makes things easier for KiCAD users or for people considering KiCAD.

He asked me if KiCAD has anything like Eagle's design rule file and CAM jobs files??

From what I can tell the gerber file plot options are stored inside the PCB file under a section called "PcbPlotParams". So if nothing else I guess it would be possible to paste in or script in the settings for the plot options into a project.?

- Eric