KiCAD 6.0 symbol development question

Your suggestion has much similarity to what I have been rolling around in my head as a solution. Getting overwhelmed, which I am at the moment, is something I'm trying to avoid.

What can I do right now, that works and has taken into consideration long term application.

I also know for myself I'm not an iterations guys. The idea it works for now and I will fix it later is not my style. I like to put some thought into the design up front and incorporate possible uses rather than put them in later. I have four PCB done in Fritzing that I want to move to KiCAD. I have to do PCB board manufacturing runs. It feels right to move to KiCAD, away from Fritzing.

There are at least three modules in addition to this relay one, I can see on my workbench. I'm just finishing up the symbols editor training at the moment. In between my spouse chores, I would rather avoid. I'm making notes and flushing out ideas.

Just feels funny at the moment. There is a lot more talent that has been using this before me. Original thoughts are not usually my area.  I figured I could take advantage of a community of prior work. "Hey I used this relay module and needed a symbol, so I banged one out in KiCAD."

Hi Sean,

It's a nice opportunity if you like, to build a symbol (even if you don't need it and find an existing one) because lots of people here can let you know if you're going the right way about it. I did the same thing, I let people here comment on if I was doing things right or wrong when I was learning KiCad.

You'll also get a nicer symbol than any possible existing one on the Internet. For instance, you might want your relay module symbol to look like this:

A quick way is to find any vaguely similar symbol in KiCad, and make a copy of it, and then copy-paste and edit things like the connections and the shapes. That way, there's very little learning curve, other than copy-paste and double-clicking on things to rename or edit them.

I don't know if my video will suit everyone (some people will prefer documentation with screenshots etc), but these sections cover symbols and footprints, but you only need the first link, if you are happy to use any existing SIL header pin footprint in KiCAD (but eventually it's best to learn how to do footprints too).

08:29 - Component Symbol Editor

15:33 - Component Footprint Editor

It's a short 8-minute video portion for symbols, because the copy-paste method keeps the learning curve low as mentioned (I too was learning KiCad so I didn't want to overload myself).

Incidentally, it's also possible to split up the symbol like this:

It's not much more complicated to do that, however, if you're learning, then it is better to just do the single symbol for now, and get practice making symbols, and revisit such split symbols later.

My lack of experience with KiCAD and electronics CADs in general leaves me at a disadvantage. In 1996 I left the electronics engineering world and pursued a career in systems administration. It has only been in the last seven years I have blown the dust off my electronics knowledge.

I took the easy road and started using Fritzing. I use the PCB designer tool and skipped building the circuit. I have successfully banged out the PCB boards I have needed with that. I always found the schematic side lacking. Also its lack of developer support discouraging. KiCAD has been in the back ground. I did at one point invest time in learning how to do a schematic but lost touch with the knowledge.

A new system76 screaming laptop purchase has kindled an interest in KiCAD. So much so I purchased some online resources to make it my go to tool for electronics design (I hope). I am overwhelmed at the moment. I'm still in the stage of trying to recall "how do you do that again?" I know my confidence will increase if I can keep at it.

Here is a KiCAD question. How satisfactory is the KiCAD defaults for a maker to use? There is an overwhelming list of options in KiCAD. I use one online resource that started an introduction by showing the user how to customize the layer colours. I thought that is a poor focus for training to the person just starting out. If I go around and change these defaults my stuff is not going to look like other stuff. Yeah it might be easy for my traces to be black but if black is not used by others it will be confusing.

I'm looking for say, the top ten list of options that need to be set in KiCAD. I know the response can be dependent on user and project but I'm thinking there must be some basics. Typical traces this width, power traces this width, use net identifiers even in simple projects, stay away from this until you have more experience, do this always and it will make things easier.

I miss the instructor lead classroom experience. Having a firm setup template is a good foundation to build on, at least it has been for me. I noticed just for myself, switching grid scale is great but can lead to problems in repositioning stuff later. I hate having to tweak lines.

Learning everything about the tool is great. I'm looking to identify the make life easier stuff up front simply because they make life easier later on:) If you have any tips, I loved to hear them.

Thanks for the response folks. I am surprised that there isn't more CAD support for modules such as this. It could be one more attractant to making a sale. Then there is the understanding that many of the modules are cheap knockoffs and investing in support is not their market place. If one does it and then it gets shared extensively why invest in it. I might have gotten lost in the Sparkfun market place resources for makers to think it was possible.

The posted responses made me miss being at work. Only briefly, trust me retirement is so much better! Discussions such as this would have taken place during scheduled breaks in the lunch room huddled over a napkin drawing.

A few comments did leave me with follow-up questions. I tend to gravitate towards finding a way to do something rather than developing my own from scratch. This relay is one example but I can think of others. Using discrete components to build from ground zero is time consuming and labour intensive. Purchasing pin ready just wire up modules seems ideal.

I have a bag of the relay components. I have had them for some time. I purchased them with a project thought but never got around to moving the thought to actually making it. When I planned to use them on the next project I notice the self contained module and thought here is a solution. With a single row socket, this relay module could plug into my motherboard. Driver ccts and EMF collapse diodes all done for me. Also I see relays as common failure points. I try to avoid them if I can. A relay module become a plug and place repair.

Grabbing a resources (i.e. symbol with footprint in this case for KiCAD) to insert into the design rather than DIY again seems ideal. I lack the experience and confidence to create the module support resources. I'm trembling over the constructing just the schematic and getting it working. Symbol and foot print build becomes one more task on the road to getting the project done. Pre-made seems so much more easier.

I also thought the maker community would be all over having a collection of modules. Like resources that are popping up for 3D printing. Creating and making available little snippets of their work to be incorporated into others work. I think I lack the understanding for intellectual property. I tend to have an open-source mind set. Dropping a module symbol on a drawing that has a bald-engineer logo seems fitting for credit.

I hardly ever use library symbols (schematic or footprints) in my PCB CAD system.

I might start off with a library symbol which I then modifiy but the CAD system also makes it easy to make new ones.

There are reasons for this:

For complex parts like processors I make different schematic symbols for different projects so that the schematic can truly represent the design intent in a useful graphical way.

So if I have an FPGA connected to an ADC using maybe 10 of the FPGA's 256 pins I'll make a schematic part with only those FPGA pins actually connected to the ADC and put that next to the ADC on the analogue sheet of the design. It's a little bit more work at the start but potentially a huge saving in communicating the design to other people.

You'll see a lot of schematics which are just a lot of blocks with names attached to pins, these are very difficult to understand.

There is no chance at all that a standard schematic library part will match my design.

Standard footprints can work (and for example the IPCC librarires offered by CAD vendors may be good) but conventions and practice regarding solder paste, silk screen etc will vary according to customer preference and production methods.

I have seen so many bad library parts that I would never use one without careful checking, so it often need little extra time to design them to be just right for the job.

MK