Your favorite schematic software

I only used Eagle, the user interface seems really outdated and not user friendly. But I liked there were so many Libraries available online for Eagle and also that it had Auto-Router which I find really useful.

I tried KiCad but it didn't have Auto-Router tool which I found a bit strange.

For you guys that use KiCad, how do you get component libraries? Any way of converting Eagle Libraries and importing them to KiCad?

Thanks

Whoops said:

II tried KiCad but it didn't have Auto-Router tool which I found a bit strange.

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You should go to the forums. They will tell you that autorouter is for sissies. 
More seriously, they are working on it, but as an entity without head, it takes ages for debate before anything happens.

  Any way of converting Eagle Libraries and importing them to KiCad?

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Kicad is supposed to import Eagle designs; I tried with my old version (v5.00), didn't work.

abbey road d enfer said:

You should go to the forums. They will tell you that autorouter is for sissies. 

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;D ;D ;D ;D


I will not be loosing my time in going there and telling them they are wrong.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Well, I sent it off to the editor.  Hopefully didn't leave too much out.  Limit of 1200 words, and have to leave room for pictures.

Thanks everyone for all your input!

CurtZHP said:

Well, I sent it off to the editor.  Hopefully didn't leave too much out.  Limit of 1200 words, and have to leave room for pictures.

Thanks everyone for all your input!

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Please show us when it's released,
thanks and good work

For all those who were put of Kicad because of its weird top left hand corner origin with y increasing downwards, I am pleased to say this has now been rectified in the latest version. You can now set the x and y axes to increase in any direction and you can actually place the origin in the screen anywhere you like.

The latest version is 5.9 something and when testing debugging is done I belive this will be released as version 6

Cheers

Ian

Update:  The editor says he plans to run the article sometime in March.

ruffrecords said:

For all those who were put of Kicad because of its weird top left hand corner origin with y increasing downwards, I am pleased to say this has now been rectified in the latest version. You can now set the x and y axes to increase in any direction and you can actually place the origin in the screen anywhere you like.

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Only a few weeks ago, I was vilified for suggesting Y-down was wrong, against all evidence.

abbey road d enfer said:

Only a few weeks ago, I was vilified for suggesting Y-down was wrong, against all evidence.

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I raised this very topic on the Kicad group I moderate following a review of the new features included in the upcoming release. There was a very 'lively' debate when I suggested one of the things that put a lot of people off using Kicad is the weird postion of the origin in the top left corner. After several days discussion the reviewer updated his review to expand on this topic (which he had barely mentioned in passing in his original review) so it was clear the subject was known to the developers and they had done something about it.

Hopefully that is the end of that pointless debate.

Cheers

Ian

If you guys think the KiCad community is bad....try talking to mainline Linux kernel developers online. Hopeless.  ;D

iampoor1 said:

If you guys think the KiCad community is bad....try talking to mainline Linux kernel developers online. Hopeless.  ;D

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It's a quite common situation with volunteer-based endeavours. Criticism is received with a "don't-look-at-the-horse's-teeth" attitude.
I like situations where one's sustainance is tied with their ability to satisfy customers needs.

for those who do not hate Java, there is this to use with Kicad to do autorouting: https://freerouting.org/freerouting/using-with-kicad but I suppose you already know about it

Jaco