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The State of KiCad

Wayne Stambaugh from KiCad joins us to discuss upcoming plans and features for 2018

Friday, January 5, 2018 12:00 pm PST - Friday, January 5, 2018 12:30 pm PST Local time zone:
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____________________________________________________________

Wayne Stambaugh will be co-hosting the Hack Chat this week.

This Hack Chat is at noon PST, Friday, January 5th. 

Time Zones got you down? Here's a handy count down timer! 

KiCad is an electronic design automation (EDA) software that was developed 25 years ago. KiCad is popular because anyone can contribute to its development, there are many tutorials available to get started with, and KiCad's often utilized Gerber viewer. 

KiCad's popularity is also driven by the fact that KiCad is free. KiCad tools include schematic capture, PCB layout, BOM export, and 3D viewing.

Wayne Stambaugh is the Project Leader at KiCad. He has a background in designing test systems for the entire hardware/ software product. Among others, he has worked on cancer imaging, analog IO, and  capacitive tilt sensor product test systems. He is currently leading the effort on the KiCad product roadmap and is the author of KiCad's CvPcb Reference Manual.

This chat is about the status on the Kicad project, upcoming features, and is a place to make suggestions, air complaints, and add wish list items. Please leave suggestions and questions in the comments on this project.

Not a KiCad fan? We just spoke with EAGLE, here's the transcript. We'll be speaking with Alltium and others in the coming months.

TL;DR 

  • What new features are on the roadmap for 2018?
  • What new features were developed since we chatted in January 2017?
  • Under the hood- how KiCad development works
  • How can a developer get started helping out?

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alan_r_cam wrote 01/04/2018 at 03:05 • point

It's been a while since I looked at Kicad - how well does it handle RF & Microwave ? Stripline and microstrip?

I can calculate trace widths and gaps elsewhere, given dielelectric and PCB thickness. My biggest hassle has always been TAPERED tracks. (Google: Tapered Stripline Transformer for some excellent examples)
Linear tapers are bad, but you can hack something together using the the flood fill tool (and not limiting yourself to 45 degree angles). BUT - I never managed to get a curved taper. 
Is this possible now, with Kicad?

  Are you sure? yes | no

Wayne Stambaugh wrote 01/05/2018 at 19:24 • point

We now have support for complex pad shapes which is still a bit raw but very powerful.  You can even use math operators to create pad shapes so it should be possible to just about anything you can imagine.  I haven't had time to play with this feature yet but it is available.  It would be nice to get some feedback on this.  There still is no support for curved (arc) tapers but you should be able to approximate curves with line segments.

  Are you sure? yes | no

Andrew Sowa wrote 01/03/2018 at 17:39 • point

The biggest thing for me is when will the new 3D code be implemented in the main release.  I use the nightly build because I want to share step files with ME's but this breaks the ability to share the board design with people using the stable build. 

Footprint assist and new 3D viewer are great additions.  

The measurement tool and graphic tools have seen a couple changes over the nightly builds. What direction are these going? Arcs are always tough to manage because of the center, radius, degree orientation.  There is typically one side of the arc I have to manually connect by making a small line to fill the gap. If I don't do this it breaks some 3D features. 

Is there plans on converting the wrml library to step once it is officially release? I have used CADexhange for some one off stuff but it is pay to get batch processing. 

I don't get the whole power flag thing. 

Where is help needed? Money, devs, librarians, etc.  

Is there talk of a default BOM management tool?   The 3rd party ones are good but can be hard to find if you don't know to look for them.  

  Are you sure? yes | no

rene poeschl wrote 01/05/2018 at 18:12 • point

About step 3d support. Have a look at the freecad workbench kicad-stepup. https://sourceforge.net/projects/kicadstepup/ This works in combination with KiCad v4 stable. (And will stay useful for the v5 release as well.) If you have more questions about that, you can reach the developer of this workbench over at https://forum.kicad.info/

And about the 3d library: The new 3d lib (https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-packages3D) has already lots of step files in it. (This repo only accepts contributions that include a step file and a correctly scaled wrl file. KiCad Stepup is one way to create such a step/wrl pair.)

---

I assume with power flag you mean the one symbol in the power lib of the official lib called PWR_FLAG.

This is simply a symbol with one hidden pin that has the electrical type "power output". If you have a power input pin on a net but no other symbol with a power output pin, you can use this symbol to tell kicads ERC that this net is supplied with power using this power flag. (You need it if you supply your pcb via a generic connector symbol, or if you have a passive component in series to the supply.)

All other symbols in the power lib have one hidden power input pin. This results in the pin being a global label and requiring a power output to drive the resulting net. (All hidden power input pins are global labels. This "feature" was used in the old logic libs.)

---

I hope this answers at least some of your questions. (And i hope i don't break some rule by answering here instead of waiting for wayne to answer your questions.)

  Are you sure? yes | no

Thomas Pointhuber wrote 01/05/2018 at 18:12 • point

For step support, the new library contains for every model .wrl as well as .step models:

https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-packages3D

It's actually mandatory now when someone want's to contribute 3d-models to the official library.

(ok, a few senconds to late ^^)

  Are you sure? yes | no

Wayne Stambaugh wrote 01/05/2018 at 19:30 • point

Recently a change was introduced that will replace vrml models with step models when exporting to step.  As long as the step file has the same file name (sans extension) in the same folder as the vrml file, the step exporter will export the board with the step models.

  Are you sure? yes | no

oshpark wrote 12/28/2017 at 17:47 • point

Very exciting!  

  Are you sure? yes | no

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