kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[John Devereux <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Collin Anderson <metacollin@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Some weeks ago, KiCad hit some sort of personal 'critical mass' for me
> and I began using KiCad exclusively for all my projects, including
> some fairly complex high end switch mode and power designs, the kind
> of project where most of the components will need custom footprints
> unique to that board. Heatsink mounting, thermal 'hacks', some random
> ferrite bead put on a trace at the last minute, the kind of stuff that
> keeps board layout guys up at night (but perhaps not as much as RF
> stuff keeps them, or me at least, up at night ;) )
>
> I know KiCad is still evolving and still pushing towards a new stable
> release, but for me, I'll be using KiCad exclusively now, stable be
> damned :). I am coming from the perspective of a long time Eagle and
> Altium Designer, a schematic, board, full design that would have taken
> many days in Eagle and 2 or 3 in Altium (for some stuff Altium is a
> much more capable tool than Eagle) by my estimation took me an
> AFTERNOON in KiCad. As the first small piece of a much larger project,
> I've been really digging in to the bigger stuff the past couple of
> weeks, and I am much further along than I ever planned or expected to
> be, thanks primarily to choosing KiCad as my CAD tool for this
> project. And sure, KiCad is not without it's quirks and issues, but
> neither are Eagle or Altium, or any CAD tool I would imagine. What
> will say is that I can think of no better measurement of software
> being 'powerful' than letting the same person produce the same results
> or better results in much less time. 
>
> But honestly, that's not even the part that made me so excited that I
> felt I had to write the developers as I am doing right now though.
> Results are, of course, results. But KiCad did something for me that I
> never expected, or really ever thought would be possible, on a much
> more emotional level. KiCad is fun. I've always been passionate about
> electronics, but making a board, meticulously translating dimension
> drawings to footprints, layout and deadend refactoring and respinning,
> all that stuff was more of a chore to me.
> Frustrating. EDA/CAD
> software always felt like it was preventing me as much as enabling me
> to do my work, and that's after becoming very familiar with a EDA
> package, I don't mean learning curve stuff. 
> I don't know what quality or design decisions caused this, it's a very
> irrational 'gut' sort of thing, but KiCad does the impossible by
> making CAD fun! Maybe it's as simple as more immediate results, kind
> of an instant gratification kick, or minimization of frustrations, I
> don't know. But for the first time, I enjoy every part of this field,
> from start to finish. I enjoy making footprints. In fact, that's my
> favorite part. Which seems absurd to me, but is also true.

Hi Collin

Interesting... I gave kicad a good try over the new year hoping to
switch to it (for commercial use). It was precisely the footprint
creation workflow that I could not get to be usable for me. It was too
hard to create accurate footprints with the legends I wanted (following
the component outline basically, with gaps to avoid pads). Just moving
the cursor accurately (e.g. to typed-in coordinates), precisely visiting
a sequence of points (to define the shape) - this seemed almost
impossible.

> Things that would be painful, like needing to switch out a bunch of
> components or refactor a board due to production logistics? It's fun!
> I just draw a new footprint, regenerate a netlist, boom boom boom,
> it's done and it was painless, no problem at all. I can't even imagine
> dealing with, say, Eagle's lack of symbol/footprint mutual agnosticism
> the way KiCad does now. I even like running the DRC, and no one likes
> doing that. It just gives you a list of how you screwed up. Now
> though, things are rapid enough that its fun to really 'perfect' a
> board in a way it never was for me.
>
> As silly as this sounds, KiCad as made me a much happier person :).
>
> Everyone, thank you so much for all the years and countless hours of
> work you've done to produce this tool. The best part is it's only
> going to keep getting better! I know this list is for discussing
> development, but I really wanted to let you guys know about my recent
> experiences. Thanks!

You make me want to try it again, see what I missed!

John

-- 

John Devereux