This should be a good release, although this particular article could probably be edited down to 50% of its size without losing any information :-).<p>One of the things that KiCAD is doing to making a legitimate open framework for eCAD design. Not surprisingly, back in the 80's when the "CAD Framework Initiative" started up and everyone was going to be able to mix and match CAD components a bunch of CAD vendors got scared and inundated
the standards effort with people whose job was to derail the effort. They were successful.<p>In the years following, any time a CAD package that was "free" or low price became reasonably competitive, one of the existing CAD vendors would buy out the developers and quietly smother it or turn it into a feeder for their "real" product.<p>That KiCAD has lasted this long is pretty cool. I suspect it has enough momentum that it cannot be stopped now but I'm still expecting interference from the big CAD vendor types.
> Eeschema files will be self-contained and will not depend on libraries. You will be able to publish and share these files and be sure that they will open properly on other people's KiCad 6 instances.<p>Oh thank god. Now if only I could automatically import and upgrade all my old projects with missing libraries seemlessly... or can I?
Not to distract from the topic, but I was just wondering: how is HorizonEDA doing these days? Can KiCAD learn from this project?<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23062174" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23062174</a>
S-expression schematics. Nice. There are entire markup disciplines that probably should have just been s-expressions and saved a few billion people hours.
I was a KiCAD user until they dropped support for the auto-router. They apparently had some dispute with the developer of the auto-router, and took out auto-router integration. (Yeah, there's some hack to make it still work, maybe.)<p>I have an old board I'd like to revise slightly, but it's too much work and risk to convert to the new "interactive" (i.e. manual) routing system.
I used KiCad 5 design some PCBs which are being shipped to me now. I've never done this before, and it was a fantastic experience after I went through a few tutorials on how to actually use it. I look forward to using KiCad 6!
For any Kicad devs reading this thread, are multi-sheet schematics on the roadmap at all?<p>I work with some Orcad designers who view it as a necessary feature for the style of schematics that they draw. They feel like forced-hierarchical is arbitrary and high friction, but also don't want to throw a complex design onto one giant sheet.
Two features I miss:<p>1. Ability to produce several PCB layouts from the same schematic (e.g. right-to-left and left-to-right, I needed this a couple of times to accommodate different chassis)<p>2. Ability to have "outboard" circuit fragments (i.e. a set of panel mounted pots interconnected with wires, or a sub-board that's logically a part of the same circuit).<p>Neither of which seems to be there, unless the review forgot to mention them. Unfortunate, but still there's a significant number of updates that make upgrading worthwhile once the release stabilizes.
Some past threads, for the curious:<p><i>Real-time Netlisting in KiCad [video]</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27367414" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27367414</a> - June 2021 (27 comments)<p><i>Making a Timelapse of your PCB design in KiCad</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22355847" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22355847</a> - Feb 2020 (9 comments)<p><i>KiCad Joins Linux Foundation to Advance Electronic Design Automation</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21619542" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21619542</a> - Nov 2019 (49 comments)<p><i>Why open hardware needs open software</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388220" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21388220</a> - Oct 2019 (29 comments)<p><i>KiCad 5.1.0</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19456152" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19456152</a> - March 2019 (35 comments)<p><i>Start with Kicad – Schematic Diagram</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18969124" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18969124</a> - Jan 2019 (2 comments)<p><i>KiCad 5 – A New Generation</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594677" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594677</a> - July 2018 (2 comments)<p><i>Convert your KiCAD boards into nice looking 2D pinout diagrams</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14122958" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14122958</a> - April 2017 (1 comment)<p><i>How to translate your Eagle libraries to KiCad</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13573567" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13573567</a> - Feb 2017 (1 comment)<p><i>KiCad: A commitment to freedom</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12713089" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12713089</a> - Oct 2016 (83 comments)<p><i>Tutorial On Designing/Building A PCB (Using FOSS)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670498" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670498</a> - May 2016 (41 comments)<p><i>KiCad 4.0.0 is Out</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10676514" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10676514</a> - Dec 2015 (37 comments)<p><i>Design for Assembly in KiCad</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8399815" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8399815</a> - Oct 2014 (11 comments)<p><i>KiCad videos released</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8153324" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8153324</a> - Aug 2014 (10 comments)<p><i>KiCAD a Free and Open Source EDA Tool</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315852" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315852</a> - Sept 2008 (1 comment)
KiCAD 5 was the point where it got good enough for the people wanting to switch to do so. Let's hope this release makes people not looking to switch <i>want</i> to so.<p>Some of the improvements look universally great (especially sweet & simple ones like the ratsnest improvement) others will slightly alienate the current users but hopefully make the program feel more familiar to first time users.
I tried KiCAD out a few years ago but abandoned it because you couldn't move components around easily without breaking the connected wires. IIRC there was "G" shortcut to do it but the pathing was so poor as to not be worthwhile.<p>Has that gotten better in recent versions and it is worth another go?
I'll have to try this out. I'm curious how parts creation/editing has changed. I just started using Fritzing again and the parts editing is working a lot better now. I feel like it finally has enough feautures to finish a project.
I am learning Kicad myself but I had a friend who years ago had used kicad to design the board for his commercial pulse oximeter it was impressive then but now is worlds improved. This review is great for getting a jump start on the new features
I love KiCad. At this point the only thing missing for me is repeated subcircuit layout in PCB. There’s a nice plug-in for it but I really want to see it integrated. I’m sure it’s coming soon.
Is there a tool that can simulate some types of Kicad outputs? I mean something like do a PCB design for a simple circuit and then "run" or debug it in some way.
As a data scientist/machine learning engineer, I read "EDA" as "Exploratory Data Analysis" [0] and was amused (if let down) when I clicked through.<p>[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratory_data_analysis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratory_data_analysis</a>