Importing from PADS to KiCAD

[jamie297]

Total PCB newbie here so sorry if this belongs in beginner.

I'm trying to replicate an open source project where PCB layout files have been made in PADS. (.pcb file).
My university doesn't own this software so I'm trying to use KiCAD.

Any way to import this file into KiCAD, or am I stuck with using the free PADS viewer to make a copy?
Any other suggestions of free(beer) workarounds appreciated.

Thanks in advance 

[jamie297]

For anyone else with the same issue, I think I've found a workaround.

Gerber files can be viewed with KiCAD, then sent from there to pcbnew for editing.

[Doctorandus_P]

This is a good workaround.
By opening a Gerber in Gerbview, and exporting it to KiCad, you can recover:
1). Board outline with mounting hole positions.
2). All tracks.
3). Usually pads (These are not really in Gerbers).

Pads are exported as THT holes, and require a bit of hand work. The usual way is to first recover or redraw the schematic and assign footprints, and then import the Footprints in Pcbnew. These footprints can than easily be aligned with the recovered coordinates from the pads in the gerbers, and after that they can be easily deleted.

It still requires manual effort, but it is a nice feature to have such an import capability available.

[darrenh]

1. https://www.altium.com/solution/migrating-from-mentor-pads-to-altium-designer
    Convert PADS schematics and layouts or libs into ASCII format.
2. Import them into Altium Designer.
3. For *.SchDoc and *.PcbDoc,
    use https://github.com/thesourcerer8/altium2kicad to convert them.
4. For *.PcbLib, export it into P-CAD *.LIA format.
5. For *.SchLib and *.LIA,
    use https://github.com/xtoolbox/pcad2kicad to convert them.
6. Import generated *.sch *.kicad_pcb *.lib *.kicad_mod into KiCad project.

[PlainName]

1. https://www.altium.com/solution/migrating-from-mentor-pads-to-altium-designer
    Convert PADS schematics and layouts or libs into ASCII format.

If one had the software to convert to ASCII, one wouldn't need to convert to ASCII