Blog | KiCad EDA

Mask Clearance Generation Changes

Published 2018-05-01

As of version 5.0.0-rc2 (commit 93c7f65d to be precise), there is a change in way the solder mask and solder paste clearances are determined. For pads defined with copper layers, the solder mask and solder paste clearance calculations remain the same. For pads defined with no copper layers (referred to as aperture pads), the inherited clearance and ratio settings are no longer applied and the pad is plotted as defined.

KiCad Official Libraries

Published 2017-11-10

The KiCad project is proud to announce that the official KiCad libraries are now featured on the KiCad website. The library team has invested a large amount of time improving the standard of the KiCad libraries. As part of this effort, a new set of KiCad Library Conventions (KLC) are now available on the KiCad website at /libraries/klc. These conventions help to ensure that contributions to the libraries are held to a high standard.

Testing: Symbol Library Table Released

Published 2017-11-08

The KiCad project recently merged the symbol library table code for accessing symbol libraries into the master branch. This represents a significant change in the way symbol libraries are defined and accessed. It is similar in design and function of the footprint library table and will resolve the long standing issue with symbol library ordering in Eeschema along with some new features such as platform independence and lazy library loading.

Testing: Eagle import plugins

Published 2017-10-20

The KiCad project is proud to announce the support for importing Eagle projects. This is the outcome of work to complete the Eagle schematic file plugin and integrate it with the Eagle board file plugin. From the new "Import Project" menu entry in the KiCad launcher users may now select an Eagle schematic or board file and the new project name and location, after which the corresponding Eagle files will be imported respectively into EEschema and PcbNew.

KiCad 4.0.7 Stable Release

Published 2017-08-28

The KiCad project is proud to announce the latest stable release of KiCad. The 4.0.7 stable version contains critical bug fixes and other minor improvements since the last release. It also includes improved footprint, symbol, and 3D model libraries, translations, and documentation. The stable release version 4.0.7 is made from the stable 4.0 branch with bug fixes cherry picked from the development branch of KiCad. KiCad binaries are available or will be available in the near future for download for Windows, OSX and Linux, see the download page for guidance.

KiCad 4.0.6 Stable Release

Published 2017-03-07

The KiCad project is proud to announce the latest stable release of KiCad. The 4.0.6 stable version contains critical bug fixes and other minor improvements since the last release. One other notable change was the replacement of the Avhttp library with the libcurl library when building the GitHub plugin. This should allow Linux distributions that are not compatible with the OpenSSL library license to distribute KiCad with the GitHub plugin enabled.

KiCad 4.0.5 Stable Release

Published 2016-12-18

The KiCad project is proud to announce a new stable release of KiCad. The 4.0.5 stable version contains critical bug fixes and version string improvements since the last release. The stable release version 4.0.5 is made from the stable 4.0 branch with bug fixes cherry picked from the development branch of KiCad. KiCad binaries are available or will be available in the near future for download for Windows, OSX and Linux, see the download page for guidance.

Gerber X2 Support

Published 2016-11-18

"blog/categories" = [ "Development Highlight" ] The KiCad project is pleased to announce that it is the first electronic development application to fully support the Gerber X2 extensions. See the article on the PCB Design website. Thanks to the efforts of project founder Jean-Pierre Charras, KiCad can provide full Gerber X2 extension support before any proprietary or open source electronic development applications. The Gerber X2 support is currently available in the nightly builds of KiCad and will ship when the stable 5 version of KiCad is released.

KiCad 4.0.4 Stable Release

Published 2016-08-29

Hot on the heels of stable release 4.0.3, there is a new stable release of KiCad. The 4.0.4 stable version contains a few critical fixes that slipped through the cracks in the last release. The stable release version 4.0.4 is made from the stable 4.0 branch with bug fixes cherry picked from the development branch of KiCad. KiCad binaries are available or will be available in the near future for download for Windows, OSX and Linux, see the download page for guidance.

KiCad Switches to Git for Version Control

Published 2016-08-21

The moment all of you Git fans have been waiting for has finally arrived! As of August 21st, 2016 the official version control system for the development repository for KiCad is now Git instead of Bazaar. The decision was made to stick with Launchpad as the hosting site rather than move to Github in order to keep our existing bug tracker history. The development team decided that the Lauchpad Git integration had reached a sufficient level of maturity to make the switch.

Changes 2 Development Highlight 16 Events 2 Media 1 News 26 Release Notes 42 Status Update 2