Re: For those struggling with migration to KiCAD

From: silverdr_at_wfmh.org.pl
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 13:54:14 +0200
Message-Id: <DA0ABEA6-A06F-4813-9381-52F988DFB13D@wfmh.org.pl>
> On 2018-03-24, at 23:39, Mia Magnusson <mia@plea.se> wrote:
> 
>> The full story - I lost count which time it was that I tried, and all
>> previous ones failed. This time I eventually succeeded. I both
>> started and finished a project without touching EAGLE. What I can
>> list as key factors, which you may want to have in mind on your next
>> approach ;-) is the following:
>> 
>> - take a really small but at the same time a non-trivial project.
>> - something that you would do in EAGLE in not more than a few hours,
>> but
>> - something that requires all elements of a bigger design, just in
>> small quantities.
>> - ground/power planes, vias, components with exchangeable
>> gates/pins, ...
> 
> ... or do something really small just to get a feel on how it works.
> Then when you do something bigger you can flip to the smaller project
> to try out the stuff you haven't already done in the smaller project.

This type of approach didn't work for me. It was like the "Hello, world\n" type of project always worked in a way. So, next time I wanted to take on something I actually needed to be done over a weekend. That always ended - as I wrote here before - that Sunday late afternoon no acceptable results where available. At that moment redoing the thing from scratch in EAGLE until late night seemed like the only choice available to make sure the thing is done. Otherwise it would have to wait an undetermined period of time for another available weekend.

With the approach I took this time, I feel relatively confident that I ironed out (or worked around) most of the problems that could otherwise stop or substantially slow me down the next time.

>> - use only the "modern (accelerated) toolset". Forget the rest.
> 
> I use the one thats default, whichever that is. My only problem is that
> it's rather graphics intensive when you move/place stuff. It's fine if
> you think my setup is crazy, but I actually run stuff on my Linux box
> via VNC onto a Windows desktop box. When using VNC moving stuff is
> really slow. You learn to place the mouse pointer as close as possible
> to the correct position and then use the keyboard to actually select a
> new component or whatever you are going to do.

I would say that yours is hardly a typical, productive setup. Actually I wouldn't try to work that way with anything CAD related. In such setup, the main advantages of the "modern toolset" (responsiveness, interactive routing, ..) are not really available anyway.

>> - have forum.kicad.info open all the time ;-)
> 
> I dug up a few tutorials on the net, used mostly parts of one of them,
> and searched the net for various stuff that I struggled with while
> learning.

I was very positively surprised with how efficiently you can get answers on that forum. First you search through and if no answer is found, you ask a reasonably clear question. The answers came back within minutes back into my browser window. Just like the "good old" IRC channel, only with supposedly very long list of live participants being there all the time.

>> - True, there are inconsistencies in EAGLE too but KiCAD looks like
>> there is a huge pile of legacy stuff behind it and there is no
>> dictator who would tell everyone to just forget the legacy and order
>> the devs to bring consistency between various subprograms of the
>> suite. Some things work differently in eeschema, in pcbnew, in
>> footprint editor, in symbol editor, etc., etc. Yes, you learn those
>> things eventually but you shouldn't have to, IMO. I tend to blame it
>> at least in sizeable part on "democratic" process of Free Software
>> development.
> 
> Maybe this is something that will be sorted out eventually?

Maybe. IMHO it requires someone like Linus who has the ultimate last word and who says upfront things like "don't waste time doing this or that" while having his priorities well aligned.


One thing I forgot in my original post - I tested the EAGLE import support. I admit it works much better than before. But (there is always one) still:

- don't expect that what you imported will be complete, error-free and just work. It may happen if the project you imported is a very simple one (which implies it could easily be redone anyway) but complex ones probably won't work OOB, even if they look all fine at first glance.

- once you start correcting those little things, which need to be corrected on the complex project, it may soon turn into the well-known https://xkcd.com/1739/ situation and eventually be easier to redo the thing in KiCAD anyway. Especially if the project is still evolving and you still want to work further on it, as opposed to a "once finished for good" type of a project. For the latter it would be enough to keep your final output GERBERs instead of trying to import it into a CAD system anyway.

-- 
SD! - http://e4aws.silverdr.com/
Received on 2018-03-25 14:00:02

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