Electronics > PCB/EDA/CAD

Kicad: Blank SOP-8 Symbol + Footprint?

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LooseJunkHater:
I'm having trouble finding a simple "template" or blank SOP-8 PCB footprint and schematic symbol. All I can find within KiCad is ones that are already populated with writing identifying which pins are VCC, GND, switching, etc.

I'd also rather NOT create my own blank templates, as that appears to be quite timeconsuming per the YouTube video that I've watched.

ataradov:
Creating a symbol takes virtually no time, especially for 8 pins. But even if you don't want to make a new one, take the existing one and edit the pin names to be generic.
And you don't need to make the footprint, since they are already generic.

Eventually you will run into something without an existing footprint, and 8-pin device is perfect for practice.

Doctorandus_P:
Indeed. The only time consuming part is learning how to create and/or modify schematic symbols and footprints. After that, making a custom 8-pin part is done in 5 to 10 minutes.

It also looks like you are not very familiar with KiCad yet. PCB footprints are never:
"already populated with writing identifying which pins ar VCC, GND, etc".

The footprints are always generic and they just have pin numbers. If you see texts on the pins in the PCB editor, then it is the text from the net name given to it by the schematic.

Changing the texts of the pins of exisiting schematic symbols is as simple as hovering over a schematic symbol press [Ctrl + e] to load it in the symbol editor, selecting a pin and editing it's pin name. This takes about 10 seconds to do. The only thing that makes it a bit more involved is the library management, and that is improving too with each KiCad version.

LooseJunkHater:
I'm definitely a noob to KiCad. I always go back to Draw.io or Falstad because KiCad overwhelms me but I'd love to create some circuits and share them on Github or Tindie, hence why I want to dedicate more time to learning it.

So what I did on the left-side of the screen in "Libraries" is search for "SOP-8", and it only ever shows pre-made IC's. I try to modify the labels and location of pins (see pins 3 is up top and pin 2 is at the bottom) but I can't figure it out. I've tried Googling this information but I can't figure it out.

ataradov:
SOP-8 is a footprint, you are searching in the symbols. Those are completely separate.

So pick something in an 8-pin package (like I2C EEPROM or SPI flash) and use that as a source.

The package you see in the light blue text is the default package that would be used. You can change that later when you are creating a schematic. And this one has exposed pad, which is probably not what you want.

So, edit the symbol to make it generic and assign whatever footprint you want by editing the symbol properties.

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