For context, I am very familiar with KiCAD and somewhat familiar with Eagle.
I think KiCAD gets a lot of things right. Some of the broken things:
parts management (There is no central repo, a la LVFS, where I can get a part/pinout/3d model to easily import)
export process (feels kludgey, although some manufactures take the native KiCAD files)
multiple users, same project -- it's hard to put artifacts into git and merge changes.
I see this solving the last issue, perhaps the second as well. Commercially, I think it is worth pursing the first.
Other thoughts:
When I spec parts for certain types of designs, I need a whole lot more than just tolerance. e.g, for a mlcc capacitor, I need to spec dielectric, voltage, tolerance, ESR, sometimes leakage. For resistors, inductors, and other jellybean parts, similar metrics apply. Specing active "common" parts (like bjt/fet, diodes, etc) has even more parameters to consider.
I would also love the ability to take a design and drop it into SPICE for simulation.
Indeed, we think the community aspect of this is super important. Being able to reuse high quality work confidently is very nice. Our export is pretty cool already! We build outputs in CI on a server, ready to drag and drop directly into JLC, including BOM and PNP files.
Being able to use git was our fundamental motivator, we all previously worked a big companies and found it maddening that we couldnt work in parallel on projects without breaking everything.
On parts specs, for sure, we currently capture all the data you would see on JLCs website. We do have dielectric and voltage ratings for caps. Eventually we plan to scrape a bunch of datasheets to build out a high quality dataset, I am very excited about this!
Also, is there any workflow option in current Kicad for importing a component-naming netlist (of the kind so many existing schematic packages can output), without having a live Kicad schematic?
One lesson of this thread could be: There is enough interest in text-based "schematics" -- aka netlist import -- for Kicad layout to add support for the approach, if it does not currently exist.
> export process (feels kludgey, although some manufactures take the native KiCAD files)
I fear a lot of this is due to manufacturers. There are quite a few variables in the file definition, and every manufacturer requires them to be set slightly different.
Having pre-baked per-manufacturer templates in a dropdown box would already be quite the improvement, though.
I think KiCAD gets a lot of things right. Some of the broken things:
parts management (There is no central repo, a la LVFS, where I can get a part/pinout/3d model to easily import)
export process (feels kludgey, although some manufactures take the native KiCAD files)
multiple users, same project -- it's hard to put artifacts into git and merge changes.
I see this solving the last issue, perhaps the second as well. Commercially, I think it is worth pursing the first.
Other thoughts:
When I spec parts for certain types of designs, I need a whole lot more than just tolerance. e.g, for a mlcc capacitor, I need to spec dielectric, voltage, tolerance, ESR, sometimes leakage. For resistors, inductors, and other jellybean parts, similar metrics apply. Specing active "common" parts (like bjt/fet, diodes, etc) has even more parameters to consider.
I would also love the ability to take a design and drop it into SPICE for simulation.