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Electronics => PCB/EDA/CAD => KiCad => Topic started by: jamie297 on January 28, 2019, 01:32:49 pm

Title: Importing from PADS to KiCAD
Post by: jamie297 on January 28, 2019, 01:32:49 pm

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  :horse:

Title: Re: Importing from PADS to KiCAD
Post by: jamie297 on January 29, 2019, 07:49:35 am

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.

Title: Re: Importing from PADS to KiCAD
Post by: Doctorandus_P on April 16, 2019, 03:07:13 pm

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.

Title: Re: Importing from PADS to KiCAD
Post by: darrenh on August 16, 2020, 03:37:45 pm

1. https://www.altium.com/solution/migrating-from-mentor-pads-to-altium-designer (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 (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 (https://github.com/xtoolbox/pcad2kicad) to convert them.
6. Import generated *.sch *.kicad_pcb *.lib *.kicad_mod into KiCad project.

Title: Re: Importing from PADS to KiCAD
Post by: PlainName on August 19, 2020, 03:30:39 pm

Quote

1. https://www.altium.com/solution/migrating-from-mentor-pads-to-altium-designer (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 :)