Version 8 Project News

[Veteran68]

KiCad has never taken 5 seconds to start on my machines when I was using it on Windows. It was nearly instant just like on Linux. But I was using it on Windows 7, so maybe things have gotten worse on more recent Windows versions, I don't know.

KiCad 7 starts instantly (well, <2sec from icon click to main window appearing) on my Windows 11 machine no matter whether it's the first time or 10th time. But I also have a pretty beefy system (i9 12th Gen, Gen4 NVMe, 32GB RAM) so probably not a representative sample of the typical KiCad user.

[nctnico]

Very nice set of features, it's good to see this free software improving over the years.
The library import is great, especially if they start importing the countless components that are in Altium now. They can get serious traction like that.

In my experience importing / converting designs / libraries is highly overrated and should not be relied on. The problem is that for import to really work, both pieces of software need to treat objects in the exact same way or must have primitives / properties that supply 100% compatible counterparts. The chance of that being the case is extremely low. This means you are very likely left with wonky symbols/ footprints and are better off creating new symbols / footprints which use the proper primitives / properties that match the workflow the software is using. Been there, done that.

What I've done was OrCAD imports to Altium. It was working quite well, the footprints were usable, and the Schematic symbols as well. Though they remained those ugly OrCAD symbols. The only part which wasn't usable was the 3D STEP objects, which doesn't really prevent you from using it. I had boards imported from orcad to altium, and made significant changes to it, releasing into production, so not just a quick trial.

And having the importer for people to use is nice, but that's not what should be exciting. Würth has Altium library for practically all their components. If someone sits down, imports, maybe fixes, and orcad-ifys all the libraries, you suddenly have access to thousands of components in Orcad. Do that for all the easyEDA files, and a few other manufacturers and suddenly there is a significant library available as standard in orcad. Exciting times.

That is just as much work as creating the footprints from scratch. Orcad comes with a vast library of symbols, so you don't need to convert those. If you need to check a footprint, it is just as easy to create it.

[tszaboo]

That is just as much work as creating the footprints from scratch. Orcad comes with a vast library of symbols, so you don't need to convert those. If you need to check a footprint, it is just as easy to create it.

Not for connectors, those are mayor  PITA. And then there are all the STEP files that are very useful even for inductors, the different electrolytic capacitor packages.
And ICs are very very error prone, for the SCH symbol.
I was converting from Orcad, to Altium as the previous contractor used that software for the board, and we needed it changed, and the license lapsed.

[SuperFungus]

Are they releasing the eeschema Python API finally?

[SiliconWizard]

Are they releasing the eeschema Python API finally?

Would be useful.

[Kais]

In the mean time the release candidate for version 8 RC1 is out:
https://www.kicad.org/blog/2024/01/KiCad-Version-8-Release-Candidate-1/

[shapirus]

Anyone who's using Linux, does the memory leak that I described in https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/16404 reproduce for you? What are you using: X11, Wayland?

It apparently does not reproduce under Windows, at least, per one comment in that ticket.

For me with X11 (and KDE) it reproduces very reliably, which makes me restart kicad from time to time to avoid OOM, and that's quite annoying. And that's even though I have 64GB of RAM on my desktop -- it would've been much worse with 32, let alone 16.

If more people can reproduce it, then we can try to narrow down a specific enviroment where it occurs, which may help the developers fix the leak before 8.0 is released. I think it's a quite serious bug, as is any significant memory leak.

Also, does anyone have any suggestion of a memory leak detection tool that I could use to track what exactly is not freeing memory in my case?

[nctnico]

IMHO Valgrind is THE tool of choice to find memory leaks in Linux software. I had to use it a couple of times and it works like a charm after a short RTM session. But you'll likely need unstripped binaries with debugging information enabled for Valgrind to show you which line of code is causing the leak.

[shapirus]

IMHO Valgrind is THE tool of choice to find memory leaks in Linux software. I had to use it a couple of times and it works like a charm after a short RTM session. But you'll likely need unstripped binaries with debugging information enabled for Valgrind to show you which line of code is causing the leak.

Yeah I should have known, as I used valgrind for my own programs myself (even though it was 20 years ago).

KiCad is running super extra slow under it though... Will see if it reports anything.

update: it's not just slow, but it appears to be going into an infinite loop once I click the start simulation button. Happens with both memcheck and massif. Meh.

I guess I'll try some other tools. I remember there were a few that would LD_PRELOAD their libs that substitute the normal malloc() calls, now I need to dig them out of my memory or just find them from scratch.

[SiliconWizard]

I'd be curious to see what Valgrind finds with Firefox...

[afkiwers]

Don't forget HTTP library support. KiCad can now communicate with REST APIs.

I made a plugin for InvenTree if anyone is keen to source their components straight from their own source.
https://github.com/afkiwers/inventree_kicad

[retiredfeline]

I'd be curious to see what Valgrind finds with Firefox...

Isn't Firefox written in Rust these days? I'm not aware of Valgrind support for Rust.

[retiredfeline]

Are they releasing the eeschema Python API finally?

A dev mentioned in Jan 2023 that it won't be in v8.

[Sariel]

Does anyone know, when Kicad 8.0 is about to be released?
I can't wait 

[JohanH]

I don't know (but interested, too), but the number of issues marked for the 8.0 release is still high:

https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=8.0

Ultimately it's the same decision in any project. While bugs are being slowly fixed, you have to decide which bugs to include in the scope and which ones are moved to next release. It's not just coding and testing, also some bureaucracy.

[shapirus]

Does anyone know, when Kicad 8.0 is about to be released?
I can't wait 

It's very usable as it is already, you can always grab the latest release candidate or nightly build and give it a try. No need to necessarily wait for a release marked as such.

[SiliconWizard]

I noticed they seem to have removed a ton of QFN footprints from the library - I pull it from the git repo. If anyone happens to know why, or maybe they have renamed/relocated some?

[Doctorandus_P]

The Package_DFN_QFN.pretty library changed from 608 files (for V7)  to 615 files (V8.0.0~rc2), so not much changed over there. There has been a change in the way the search functions works, and maybe that putt you on the wrong track.

[julian1]

Another recent update video, which is an easy watch, and summarizes new features.
An addition test release-candidate is needed before expected final release in the middle of February.

FOSDEM 2024 - KiCad Status Update

[SiliconWizard]

The Package_DFN_QFN.pretty library changed from 608 files (for V7)  to 615 files (V8.0.0~rc2), so not much changed over there. There has been a change in the way the search functions works, and maybe that putt you on the wrong track.

Small mix-up here, it's not the footprints, but a bunch of the 3D models for QFN packages that got recently deleted. Not sure why.

[hpw]

I don't know (but interested, too), but the number of issues marked for the 8.0 release is still high:

https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/?label_name%5B%5D=8.0

Ultimately it's the same decision in any project. While bugs are being slowly fixed, you have to decide which bugs to include in the scope and which ones are moved to next release. It's not just coding and testing, also some bureaucracy.

The sum of bugs is a constant. An old SW rule 

Lock at the real work at https://gitlab.com/groups/kicad/-/milestones/19#tab-issues

even V7.011 still at RC1 ... I guess, we will see for V8 the same nightmare as 2023 for V7

my 2 cents

Hp

[JPortici]

I guess, we will see for V8 the same nightmare as 2023 for V7

what?

[SiliconWizard]

I usually wait about 6 months when a new version is released before switching to it. Yes often the first couple of months are a bug fest. But I don't blame. Really the KiCad dev team has very limited means, and there's never enough testers before the releases. The problem being that the people using KiCad for anything serious rarely want to use a beta version for day-to-day work, and thus the real issues begin to show up when the software is finally released.
Not specific to KiCad either...

[dfnr2]

Just a quick first impression of Kicad 8.

I'm doing a small board design with electromechanical components and a bunch of driver circuitry, very tight on space.  Our mechanical engineer sent me some STEP files and some DXF's of the various zones.  I was planning to do this in Altium but decided to do this one in Kicad 8 instead, as Altium 24 is a bit crashy and is now very sluggish (on my Parallels VM, which I normally use, and also a dedicated Windows 11 machine, an HP Z8 beast).  Don't get me wrong, I like my Altium, and just renewed, but am looking to incorporate Kicad where possible, in hopes of eventually moving over entirely.


- The DXF import was very smooth, and the process of importing the DXFs to create the board outline and various mechanical height zones was a breeze.

- My 3D Connexion wired and portable space mice work perfectly, not only in the 3D view, but in all of the editors.  Just like Altium.  This was a very welcome surprise.  I saw some limited space mouse support in v7, but this has greatly improved.

- The 3D viewer has more detailed visibility control than v7 and works very smoothly.

- Importing Altium libs is very slick and works very well.

- Having properties panels in all editors is a big improvement.

- The new grid alignment system makes it MUCH easier to move around text to look nice while keeping components on the grid, without a lot of extra manual overhead.

- The RC3 is still a bit crashy and has some rough spots, but is very usable.

- Altium has more powerful tools for manipulating and aligning 3D bodies, but even without those tools, placing 3D bodies in footprints in Kicad is not difficult.  I don't really need Altium's advanced 3D features, so perhaps I'm not the best to report on this.

- The CLI makes it nearly as easy to produce a documentation and design output package as Altium's OutJobs.  It would be really nice to be able to save some viewports in the 3D viewer and then render the PCB using the viewports from the command line.  That would allow me to completely automate the package generation.  I am aware that KiBot can do this.  I will have to look into it.  But it would be nice to have from the CLI directly.

- There's an integraded BOM, but KiBOM is better.

- ERC / DRC is pretty good

- Constraints are pretty good

- I would REALLY like to see pin swapping / part swapping.  I saw it's not in the preliminary road map for v9, but I would be willing to donate toward this.

- Board outlines are fine in Kicad, but Altium has better tools for creating board outlines, manipulating them, and creating other objects form board outlines.

Overall, Kicad 8 is very impressive, and is usable for professional work.  There are some areas where Altium is better, including 3D/mechanical co-design (although I'm not convinced the workflow saves that much time), routing of high-speed differential pairs, a cloud workspace for collaboration (for those who use it.  I haven't yet), and Altium has a bit more polish in some areas.  But, it's getting sluggish and it's insanely expensive to maintain.  I can't wait to see how Kicad developes over the next few years.  My altium subscription expires in 3 years.  I suspect by then it will be tough to justify renewing again.

[JPortici]

- I would REALLY like to see pin swapping / part swapping.  I saw it's not in the preliminary road map for v9, but I would be willing to donate toward this.

Shift+B is a good workaround for that. However it has a problem in that it doesn't change the orientation of the parts, i think it just swaps the coordinates. If they augmented it to also exchange the orientation we would have Part Swapping already.
Pin swapping i see it to be more difficult, but in say microcontroller projects, for anything that isn't strictly microcontroller like programming/reset circuitry/LEDs, i usually attach a label to a pin, and when i have to move it i move the label (or swap two labels with Shift+B) and presto.

- Board outlines are fine in Kicad, but Altium has better tools for creating board outlines, manipulating them, and creating other objects form board outlines.

True, i find it hard to do nontrivial outlines, but then again i always used a 2D cad to draw them and then import the DXF into the layer