kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Andy Peters <devel@xxxxxxxxx>]

> On Jun 4, 2015, at 9:26 PM, Chris Pavlina <pavlina.chris@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> The assignment of footprints to schematic symbols is largely a KiCad 
> quirk. Many other tools consider a component to be a single package 
> containing symbol and footprint. In my own library I have a part per 
> actual electronic part (one called MMBT3904, for instance), which 
> already has the Footprint field set from the very beginning, no mucking 
> about with the nightmare that is cvpcb.
> 
> Also, footprints are much more critical, in that you have to get all the 
> dimensions very correct, so it makes much more sense in terms of being 
> less error-prone to have multiple symbols linked to one footprint than 
> one symbol linked to multiple footprints.

At risk of reiterating myself again, what Chris describes above is how professional engineering groups do their libraries. Every company I’ve worked for has a vetted parts list and the PCB layout library includes only those parts. The symbols and footprints are married to a part number. Under no circumstance would someone choose, say, an NPN transistor from a library and then later match it to a footprint and to something that can be ordered. The chance of an expensive fuck-up happening is way too high.

Pardon my Jersey.

-a