3 ms·

> Use ultra librarian for parts when possible. They're usually better. Can you please explain why / in a what way they are better ?

• junon 3y ago
  They have better footprints and usually more fleshed out symbols that are more visually descriptive. Component Search Engine has more but I've had a few erroneous footprints fall through and they're usually larger or missing things like courtyards etc. UL also has better 3D models, and more often. Also, UL often has human-verified or -engineered footprints for more exotic pieces, and splits out things like VDD/VSS into multi-unit symbols unlike CSE. Helps with organizing complex schematics. The advice I often see is "make all your own footprints" which I agree is a good skill to have but when you're trying to quickly prototype a board and get something done it's not really feasible or ergonomic in Kicad. The amount of different windows you have to go through to populate e.g. mouser/digikey/arrow part numbers to get a usable BOM export is tedious work. I actually wrote a chrome plugin that scrapes UL and mouser for all of the information then loads it into an existing Kicad symbol library with the models. Took some effort but for some reason this isn't a standardized thing which is a nightmare.
  • ruslan 3y ago
    Thank you! I use standard KiCAD library for 95-98% of components, the rest few I design by myself. I've never had any issues with automated assembly. Anyways, I will check into UL. I admit that KiCAD libs sometimes has broken 3D models, for many components 3D models are missing.