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Re: Mac OS X after one week
Last OSX build I used was 3344, and as Rob, I'm not equiped to build my own. However, 3344 was pretty usable with only a few idiosyncracies that pushed me towards the Win version. Speed on my 13" MB seemed fine. I'm happy to give it another go. It did seem that recently there were a few people bravely pushing the OSX version forward and I appreciate Julie's exploration in that area. Julie, if you are interested in posting your binaries I for one would give 'em a try. Kicad certainly doesn't, and isn't intended to, compete with Cadence, Mentor and such. But try this: with no prior experience in the tool, install Cadence, draw a schematic, route a board and send it off for fab, all before the end of the day. With Cadence you'll spend more time filling out the credit
application. OK, it took me more than a day from first simple schematic to gerbers, and someone else did layout, but people spend months or full careers coming up to speed on the high end tools. Also, KiCad does not require a team to maintain libs, track licenses, etc.? Kicad is no less serious than Cadence, it is just serious about different things. From: applewiz2000 To: kicad-users@... Sent: Sunday, June 3, 2012 9:26 AM Subject: [kicad-users] Re: Mac OS X after one week
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Hi Julie,
What a long post! The version I installed was a binary from "broken toaster". I have not the skill or time to go building it from scratch. The builds I could find were all rather old. AFAIK there is nobody doing any regular work on KiCAD OSX. My computer is an iMac 3.3GHz, early 2010, one of the last Core Duo2 models with 8GB RAM. So a fairly modern Mac, but the OSX install I have runs far too slow for serious use. As you say the lack of Mac development would suggest it's using a lot of the old Carbon stuff. hence the slowness. There are very few PCB CAD packages for OSX so KiCAD has little competition. Even in commercial packages the serious ones are Windows. KiCAD doesn't hold a candle to NI Design Suite, let alone to Cadence that I use at work, but of course those cost $$$ (or ???). I originally loaded up KiCAD here at home for ham radio work, but as I have Ubuntu also, ended up running under that when OSX was too slow. ~Rob |
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Re: circuit analysis 'add ons' for KiCAD?
I have been doing a little design work using KiCad on Linux as a front end to both ngspice (http://ngspice.sourceforge.net/, open source, but not libre according to Debian) and Spice Opus (http://www.spiceopus.si/, proprietary but gratis). I am documenting some my experience on one of my blogs (under the "frEDA" label): http://lovingthepenguin.blogspot.com/search/label/frEDA One thing I haven't documented yet is that Spice Opus seems to be a little more picky about netlist syntax than ngspice. For example, I believe ngspice will accept "GND" as an alias for "0"--meaning you can use the stock electrical ground component rather than the "custom" ground in the SPICE library--but Spice Opus insists that ground is "0". Also, case sensitivity is a tiny bit more complicated in Spice
Opus (see the first question at http://www.spiceopus.si/faq.html). However, Spice Opus' graphics are significantly better than those of ngspice. In getting the KiCad side of things set up I found the following post useful: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-users/message/7624 IIRC, the SPICE component library that ships in the Debian package isn't included in the default project template--meaning you may have to add it (or an alternative) manually to the project. Hope this helps. -Mithat
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Re: circuit analysis 'add ons' for KiCAD?
I use:
QUCS. Analog/digital so=im PUFF. EM If you don't need Linux but is running Windooze only, test QUCSDesktop. It's a forked QUCS with KiCad added on. //Dan, M0DFI On Tue, 5 Jun 2012 13:30:54 -0400 John Hudak <jjhudak@...> wrote: I am interested in pointers to any analysis addons for KICAD. Any |
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circuit analysis 'add ons' for KiCAD?
I am interested in pointers to any analysis addons for KICAD.? Any experiences/recommendations are also appreciated.
Specifically: analog circuit analysis/simulation digital circuit analysis/simulation signal and power integrity thermal analysis EMI analysis I know of some open source programs but they would require re-entering info already present in KiCAD..... Thanks John |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
keruseykaryu
"DanielW" <daniel@...> wrote:
It's not a case. We shall stop this thread. --- Backing to the main thread. Jean Pierre gave us a patch (which is now included into the current revision) and the Windows related problem was solved (I hope at all). I also sent an archive to Dick. I think I know where is the problem with the second file: It's related to my virtualised Linux under Win7, neither Eagle's saving issues nor KiCad's EAGLE_PLUGIN. I have noticed that a bit larger files copied by shared folders mechanism are sometimes (very seldom) cropped at the end. And this happen last time. Today, when I downloaded this file from archive it was opened normally. So, that's my bad. I didn't check that. Regards Kerusey Karyu |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
I don't speak Polish either. However, I went to the site anyway, and had no trouble figuring out how to download his file. Under the login box on the right is a Polish flag and the word "Polski" (which is obviously Polish for "Polish"). Click on that arrow and there's a new box that says "English" with an American flag. Select that and suddenly the website is transformed into English, with the word "Pobierz" changed to "Download". Click on that and you can download the file.
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Dan --- In kicad-users@..., "dickelbeck" <dick@...> wrote:
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
Hi Dick,
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this could benefit from another improvement in Kicad: have schematics as single files, exactly as it is done today in pcb files. Today dragging around a few extra files is just an annoyance, but it can become a burden with multiple boards... Alain Em 04-06-2012 11:34, dickelbeck escreveu: I was thinking that it might be fairly straight fwd to enhance the hierarchy system to directly support multi board systems/projects. |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
dickelbeck
Archive with screens and Eagle's files you can find at: Kerusey, I am in receipt of your files now. Thank you for your testing time and sample files. I am at work on a number of small problems this week, evenings I hope. I could not duplicate the XML parsing problem you mentioned on linux. Both boards loaded (imperfectly) on linux. The XML parsing error you showed could not be duplicated on linux. The problem you showed was complaining of a missing '<' character and this is indicative of trying to load a non-xml file into the EAGLE_PLUGIN. Make sure you have no confusion between the files. FYI, Dick |
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Re: Mac OS X after one week
applewiz2000
Hi Julie,
What a long post! The version I installed was a binary from "broken toaster". I have not the skill or time to go building it from scratch. The builds I could find were all rather old. AFAIK there is nobody doing any regular work on KiCAD OSX. My computer is an iMac 3.3GHz, early 2010, one of the last Core Duo2 models with 8GB RAM. So a fairly modern Mac, but the OSX install I have runs far too slow for serious use. As you say the lack of Mac development would suggest it's using a lot of the old Carbon stuff. hence the slowness. There are very few PCB CAD packages for OSX so KiCAD has little competition. Even in commercial packages the serious ones are Windows. KiCAD doesn't hold a candle to NI Design Suite, let alone to Cadence that I use at work, but of course those cost $$$ (or ???). I originally loaded up KiCAD here at home for ham radio work, but as I have Ubuntu also, ended up running under that when OSX was too slow. ~Rob |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
dickelbeck
Jean-Pierre,
Thanks for finding that issue on Windows. I ran Windows (7) yesterday for the first time for 20 minutes. It has over 9 months since I've looked at a Windows screen of any kind, and I am still repulsed. And as you know, I don't do any more development on Windows, even when developing Windows programs. Feel free to submit that patch if it's golden. Dick |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
dickelbeck
--- In kicad-users@..., "keruseykaryu" <keruseykaryu@...> wrote:
That link and website is of no use to me. I don't speak polish. And the link shows no zip file. Let's not even try that again. I've decide the site is bad for my use since it is in polish. How about this, try and make it real easy for me to help you. Thanks, Dick |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýLe 02/06/2012 21:05, keruseykaryu a ¨¦crit?:?Great work, Dick! Under Windows, this patch fixes the "file not found" === modifi¨¦ fichier pcbnew/eagle_plugin.cpp --- pcbnew/eagle_plugin.cpp 2012-06-02 17:07:30 +0000 +++ pcbnew/eagle_plugin.cpp 2012-06-03 14:46:36 +0000 @@ -975,7 +975,7 @@ // 8 bit "filename" should be encoded according to disk filename encoding, // (maybe this is current locale, maybe not, its a filesystem issue), // and is not necessarily utf8. - std::string filename = (const char*) aFileName.fn_str(); + std::string filename = (const char*)aFileName.char_str( wxConvFile );
read_xml( filename, doc, xml_parser::trim_whitespace | xml_parser::no_comments );
-- Jean-Pierre CHARRAS Ma?tre de conf¨¦rences. Institut Universitaire de Technologie 1 de Grenoble G¨¦nie Electrique et Informatique Industrielle 2 BP 67, 38402 St Martin d'Heres Cedex Recherche : GIPSA-LAB - INPG Rue de la Houille Blanche 38400 Saint Martin d'Heres |
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Re: I would like to suggest a Feature enhancement-Schematic Sheet property addition
Careful what you ask for... With the huge warning that this is purely my opinion, I can not imagine wanting multiple boards on a single schematic. Typically a schematic goes through many revs before a build, then often a few revs after that. If only one of the boards in a multi-board system needs changes, then it would be hard for someone looking at the schematics later to determine which board had been changed. All they would know is that the schematic had been revised sometime after the last build. Sure, you could manually put in good notes, and I'm sure that would be the intention, but it would be unlikely to happen consistently.? It is sort of the opposite of how we develop software. It is possible, but a poor
idea, to develop multiple programs all in one source file. Why use lots of little files when developing code? Because (partly) once something is locked down and working you don't want to open it up to change some unrelated thing. Likewise for a schematic. Why risk whacking something that is fine just because I am making a modification to a different board? Also, if you want to hand the schematic of one board off to another designer you either have to rip the schematic apart first (risking various errors) or you have two people working on different boards in the same schematic. That's an interesting change management problem! OK, I can see in a single-person jack-of-all-trades, plays-poorly-with-others environment, you might be able to use such a feature, but it seems a very poor practice to encourage. I suspect there are higher priority features, usable by individuals and organizations, that would be
larger bang for the buck. -j From: Paul Carew To: kicad-users@... Sent: Friday, June 1, 2012 7:36 PM Subject: [kicad-users] I would like to suggest a Feature enhancement-Schematic Sheet property addition
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I was thinking that it might be fairly straight fwd to enhance the hierarchy system to directly support multi board systems/projects.
I haven't waded into the code yet, but the hierarchy feature is pretty comprehensive. By adding a small extension, it may be possible to support documenting and laying ou a multi-board project. I know this has been much discussed in the past, but thoughts/changes/suggestions are welcome. Details: Aim: to enable KiCad to serve as a multi board system cad tool. KiCad has a great and useful mechanisim for embedding hierarchical schematic sheets. At the moment, all embedded sheets are rolled up into one top layer net list / pcb. It would be great to add a property to a schematic sheet to indicate that it is to be an independent board. A root sheet would automaticically have this poroperty set. By setting this property on a hiearchical sheet, we would be able to expand KiCad to also support both a multi card design and/or allow a schematic to have daughter cards. When creating an embedded hierachical sheet, if the setting is not set (the default) then KiCad would operate as it does today and roll all hierarchical sheets into the top level PCB. If a hierarchical sheet has the property set, a netlist generation+pcb would be constained to that sheet (and any additional hierarchical sheets contained within it). This would allow a single project to be either a single board (as it is today), or a collection of boards (I.E. a system). |
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Re: Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
keruseykaryu
"dickelbeck" <dick@...> wrote:
First of all, good job Dick. But... Life is brutal and full of "zasadzkas" (Very popular sentence in Poland). I try to open a simple BRD created by Eagle v6.2.0. Under Windows this file can't open. Pcbnew returns an error about file open problem. Take a look at the archive with some screens. I have compiled KiCad (BZR3592) few minutes ago. I'm using Brian's script under Windows 7. I've also tested some other Eagle's BRD files with no luck. :( Under Linux I'm using: cmake 2.8.7, gcc 4.6.3, wxWidgets 2.8.12.1. This same file will open normally. But the second one (double sided) can't be open by Pcbnew. That second file is normally opened with Eagle. Archive with screens and Eagle's files you can find at: Regards Kerusey Karyu |
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Pcbnew EAGLE plugin
dickelbeck
I "finished" this up this morning.
You should be able to now load Eagle version 6.x *.brd XML files into Pcbnew. To do so, use the normal *Pcbnew* file open dialog, select a file filter of "Eagle ver. 6.x XML PCB files *.brd" And then specify a *.brd filename. Temporarily until the new s-expression KICAD_PLUGIN is ready, you may be confused by having two kinds of *.brd files, supported by LEGACY_PLUGIN and EAGLE_PLUGIN both. So the chosen file filter within the open dialog is more than a wildcard selector, it also selects which PLUGIN is being called and what file format is expected. The new extension for the s-expression boards is *.kicad_pcb and those will be in millimeters, not deci-mils. Those with an Eagle eye can start testing the new EAGLE_PLUGIN. I only tested it with a couple of 2 layer boards so far. Dick |
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Re: Freerouting - Will not load .dsn file exported from KiCAD
dickelbeck
--- In kicad-users@..., "AW" <a_wolfie@...> wrote:
The DSN export is also being used by the users of the commercial tool Electra. If there were not the case, I'd say your request is reasonable. But for now, I'm saying no, you should ask Alfons to do the error reporting, he is the one having problems with what is in the specctra specification.I did get a response now... Alfons agreed with what I had discovered. Thanks for the closure on the findings. |
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Re: I would like to suggest a Feature enhancement-Schematic Sheet property addition
JorgeF_Tech
¿ªÔÆÌåÓý? °Â±ð±ô±ô¡ ? I¡¯m not regularly involved in big multi module projects, but nevertheless I already deal with a couple of those. I think this suggestion is a bit out of target. ? As I always understand it, the main target of Kicad is the PCB design. Kicad has exactly ?what is needed for a proper workflow towards a good PCB. ? This all subject of multi-board schematics seems to me like a good path to an unnecessary increase in complexity at software development level. After, all whenever an electronic device has multiple boards, each board as connectors to the other boards, and even cabling systems between them. As the connectors define the frontiers of the PCB, it seems logic that they also define the frontiers of the schematic. ? I think that are still room for several improvements to be made to Kicad as it is, before aiming to new targets. ? ? Just my 2 cents¡. ? Best regards Jorge ? ? ? ? ? ? ? De: kicad-users@... [mailto:kicad-users@...] Em nome de Paul Carew ? ? I was thinking that it might be fairly straight fwd to enhance the hierarchy system to directly support multi board systems/projects. |
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Re: I would like to suggest a Feature enhancement-Schematic Sheet property addition
W odpowiedzi na wiadomo?? z dnia 02.06.2012 04:36, od Paul Carew:
I was thinking that it might be fairly straight fwd to enhance theI think that you should look at and add this as Blueprint -- Best Regards, Lord Blick |
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I would like to suggest a Feature enhancement-Schematic Sheet property addition
I was thinking that it might be fairly straight fwd to enhance the hierarchy system to directly support multi board systems/projects.
I haven't waded into the code yet, but the hierarchy feature is pretty comprehensive. By adding a small extension, it may be possible to support documenting and laying ou a multi-board project. I know this has been much discussed in the past, but thoughts/changes/suggestions are welcome. Details: Aim: to enable KiCad to serve as a multi board system cad tool. KiCad has a great and useful mechanisim for embedding hierarchical schematic sheets. At the moment, all embedded sheets are rolled up into one top layer net list / pcb. It would be great to add a property to a schematic sheet to indicate that it is to be an independent board. A root sheet would automaticically have this poroperty set. By setting this property on a hiearchical sheet, we would be able to expand KiCad to also support both a multi card design and/or allow a schematic to have daughter cards. When creating an embedded hierachical sheet, if the setting is not set (the default) then KiCad would operate as it does today and roll all hierarchical sheets into the top level PCB. If a hierarchical sheet has the property set, a netlist generation+pcb would be constained to that sheet (and any additional hierarchical sheets contained within it). This would allow a single project to be either a single board (as it is today), or a collection of boards (I.E. a system). |
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