Kicad

Electronic CAD libraries

All the material present in this page is covered by your choice of either Creative Commons license v3.0, Attribution-Share Alike or GPLv3 or later.

I do not ask anything for my work on the libraries. However, since somebody asked, here are some addresses you can send to: Bitcoin: 3PZcx1uVAU7g7oqqWcvh5bhQg3gwDvUSGf Ethereum: 0x7647808400cF90225b559DdB0ee5F6cb38e3BDf0 Litecoin: MM2gV1nagVJBcgjwT6acAEpRn5aSwycuHr Monero: 44jBRE9CWaVhtAMpFd3VKMYVx9maBJVXGbQKYH4Ck6XXfTtkBYUwWZZ4RquTWoGh6iMDfZVoiEKU4cmhYKKD2UbXDTiA5Fs Stellite: Se3qwf6SjcBYtwHwFkVLqwQcbL9XJQqmMaKBmKuEr269AvXqC3SRAigPZufPeRr6p3dVHLFsLjjbdHFwJTR8fYFD2b7tjAGMB

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After the fortuitos discover of Kicad in the now far (informatically speaking) 2007, the only Winzozz software that I still use are videogames.

Kicad is an electronic CAD that allows you to do the following (for a more detailed explanation you should refer to the official Kicad site):

Schematic design.
Netlist creation in multiple formats (PCBNew, OrCAD, CadStar, Spice, etc...).
PCB design.
3D visualization of your PCB
Fabrication outputs generation (gerber, drill files and whatever can be needed to manufacture a PCB.)

Kicad can be used in GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, even if to open in Windows projects created within Linux (or the opposite, not having Mac OS I don't know if the same applies there) it is necessary to manually change some things inside the project files (in perfect *nix style, they are text files). To be more precise, all the "/" related to library paths must be changed with "\".
For ease of use, the PCBnew libraries here published are available in both versions, ready to be used in each operating system. If you port a project from an OS to another, however, the most terrible thing that usually happens is that you won't see the 3D component models. A fast replacement "/"<->"\" inside the .pcb file will solve the problem.

In order to create the 3D shape for the components, it is needed a 3D modeler such as Wings 3D. It is not difficult to learn neither Kicad nor Wings 3D.

All my libraries are available here for public use.
It is possible to use them also to design commercial products, within the boundaries of the Creative Commons BY-SA license.

I am available to create components not included in my libraries, with 2 clauses:

I require a standard product datasheet (I will NOT accept NDAs, see the second clause);

My work will be free, and the components will be added to my libraries covered by the CC-BY-SA license.

You can contact me at k c s w a l t e r (at) g m a i l (dot) c o m

Please note that I must be able to answer to your emails in order to grant your requests. If I can't contact you through the mail address with which you mailed me, please give me another address. If you think your mail address is right but I don't reply within a week, please contact me again with another address. Sometimes there are problems between providers (for example, I am not able to contact anyone within Metrocast network - I don't know why, it is just so).

Since september 2012, a changelog of the libraries is also available.

Since the end of March 2013, the libraries are available also through SVN (svn --username guest co http://www.smisioto.eu/kicad_libs) in a compressed version.
Since February 2014, the libraries are available also through GIT (git clone git://smisioto.eu/kicad_libs.git) uncompressed and also in the new "pretty" format. Please refer to the file readme_git.txt in the repository for more detailed informations.
Since February 2015, the old format footprint libraries will be no longer updated. Please use the new "pretty" format for new projects.
The site has been unreachable from 10/03/2021 to 22/03/2021 because of the fire at the OVH SBG datacenter where it is hosted.
Since december 15, 2021, all the 3D libraries have been upgraded to the new paths (basically added .3dshapes extension to all folders). I know it's a problem for the older projects that will stop showing 3D models properly, however the solution is quite simple. I made a powershell script (yeah, I was using Windows when it happened) that will recursively replace all the old library names with new ones on all .kicad_pcb files inside a given folder. Just change the folder name to your needs and launch it. I'll fix an equivalent for linux with sed in the near future.

NOTES:

In my libraries I follow my numeration, that in most cases - but NOT always - is the standard one, so please check your pinout before developing the PCB.

To correctly view the 3D modules, it is necessary to download the PCBnew libraries suited to your operating system.

I advise to remove all the original libraries before adding mine. Some components have identical names and Kicad can get the wrong ones.

In the changelog are also listed the library structure changes, so if you wish to update your files I suggest that you check if the X component is still in the Y library or has been moved somewhere else. The changes don't come at random, but only whenever it will be convenient to create a new, more specific, library for a component family. Basically, a single component without an already defined library will go inside misc_comp. If, with time, the similar components count gets over a certain threshold (usually over 5-6), a new specific library will be created, and all these components will be moved inside it.

A recent version of Kicad (7.0 for eeschema, 6.0 for pcbnew) is required in order to use the libraries. Old schematic libraries will be provided for a while, but without any of the last component updates.

EESCHEMA LIBRARIES symbols: 943

Power symbols (24/04/2023) (original with some modifications)

Added or modified symbols