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by jesse_m
4273 days ago
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Have you checked out the KiCad library on github[1]? That library is installed with the install script that is included with KiCad I believe when you downloaded the bzr repo. The library maintainers seem to work pretty closely with the KiCad developers. I have started using KiCad for personal projects and have been following the KiCad development for about 6 months now and from what I have gathered there has been a lot of changes in the last year. I would definitely suggest giving it another try in the near future. It also seems that the way footprints and 3d models are handled has changed in the last year. As for specific help for KiCad, they have a very helpful irc channel on freenode, there is a KiCad yahoo users group, and I just found this website with videos: KiCad.info There hasn't been a stable release in a while but the developers seem to be serious about making a new stable release in the near future. [1] https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-library |
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I've gotten burned too many times using the built-in libraries (hidden pins in EESchema not being connected to PWR/GND / incorrect pin spacing in CvPCB) so I throw those together by hand now. In EESchema I would have done it anyway, just to get the pins arranged in a way that makes my drawing look purrrrty, but the drawing/verifying of footprints does get tedious.
My understanding is that some features were removed (or significantly modified) in subsequent releases of KiCad post the version I'm using (BZR 4022), specifically the BOM export, so I haven't bothered installing another version yet. I have a series of designs about to go into production so I'm leery to change up before those boards get committed for assembly.