← Back to team overview

kicad-developers team mailing list archive

Re: Automatic assignment of footprint with a database

 

Hi Martin,

I think either branch will work, since you should be able to swap out one
part for another.
In either branch, using CvPcb is optional: you can use it if you want to
view multiple footprint options before you start the layout.
The other option is to just take the default footprint assignment for a
part, and then if there are multiple options (different SMD densities, for
example) you can swap later when you are doing the layout.

Best,
Jon

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 5:16 PM Martin Marmsoler <martin.marmsoler@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Can you open this diagram in draw.io?
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rBKeY-FXcvZxThrx6qSuzhS-VaCdgWb7/view?usp=sharing
> I think the right branch how you are thinking to implement it and the left
> one is mine. Maybe others have other preferences how the workflow should
> look like. Just draw it into the diagram ;)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Martin
>
> Am Do., 27. Aug. 2020 um 22:26 Uhr schrieb Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>> I think the system I am describing could easily link to Part-DB as the
>> backend, just looking at it briefly.
>>
>> That could be a cool application.
>>
>> -Jon
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 4:16 PM Martin Marmsoler <
>> martin.marmsoler@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 8/27/20 10:04 PM, Jon Evans wrote:
>>> >
>>> > You can also choose to place symbols from a regular KiCad symbol
>>> library.
>>> > So you could just choose an inductor symbol, which would have no
>>> > footprint association.
>>> > Later when you know what inductor you need, you can replace that with
>>> > a specific inductor from the database, which will bring in a footprint
>>> > association with it.
>>>
>>> Yes this sounds like I proposed. For a part all checked symbols can be
>>> assigned. So choosing a part which is not compatible with the current
>>> symbol raises an error.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 8/27/20 10:04 PM, Jon Evans wrote:
>>> > I think that a database library could also have a place in a community
>>> > setting, if the database is well-curated.
>>> > This would likely mean some kind of web interface for browsing parts,
>>> etc.
>>> > It would be possible, but is beyond the scope of what I'm planning to
>>> > work on at this point.
>>>
>>> For this I checked out if there exist an open source part database and
>>> there I found Part-DB
>>>
>>> https://github.com/Part-DB/Part-DB-symfony
>>>
>>> You can test it also:
>>>
>>> https://part-db.herokuapp.com/en/
>>>
>>> For me it looks promising, but I checked it only shortly.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>

References