Timeline for Why are power components meant to be power inputs in KiCad?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
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| Apr 20, 2019 at 11:09 | comment | added | Rene Pöschl | I have to disagree with this. Not with the notion that there are for sure better options. But with the notion that a complex CAD tool must be intuitive to use over everything else. Just take a look at Catia or even cadence. Both are massively expensive tools where you can not really do anything without reading a book or two or even better go to a trade school teaching all these things. And it will definitely get worse over time. This is just the nature of a steadily increasing feature set. In my mind ease of use should never overwrite general power of the tool. | |
| Apr 19, 2019 at 10:02 | comment | added | not2qubit | @RenePöschl Yes, thanks. I have since read loads of comments and issues related to this flag, including your answer above. And that is just it! While it may be useful and even easy to use, once you have understood it all, it is exactly this non-obvious functionality and wasted learning curve, that is the challenge. Why should one have to read dozens of comments, googling for examples and so on, just to have something this obvious work from the start? If it is not obvious from the KiCad GUI/UI, why, when, how and where to use it, then it should probably be removed. | |
| Apr 18, 2019 at 20:28 | comment | added | Rene Pöschl | @not2qubit The flag might be unusual but it is a powerful tool if used correctly. You can even ignore it completely by also ignoring the error message (Similar result as a tool without that feature like for example eagle which does not check power connections at all.) And for your suggestions: Read my comment and answer again. I basically already suggested this and also hinted at the fact that there are other alternatives to the flag (like properly setting the pin types of your power source to power output.) And remember you need this flag only once per power net. (So clutter is not an issue.) | |
| Apr 16, 2019 at 20:30 | comment | added | not2qubit | Jesus! This flag is absolutely absurd (and obscure since I didn't find out about it until now.) So it cannot be taken as anything else than a hack for development laziness. This flag should really rather have been included as a type or class of all the already available power pin types. Having to add this manually in all the places seem just redundant and a cause of major clutter when there are a lot of different power sources used. | |
| Jan 21, 2019 at 9:22 | history | edited | Rene Pöschl | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 21, 2019 at 8:54 | comment | added | Saren Tasciyan | @RenePöschl Oh, I see now. I read them but somehow I missed that power flag needs to be used together with electrical potentials. The confusion was due to many schematics out there, which don't include the flag at all. I guess they don't care about ERC. | |
| Jan 21, 2019 at 8:37 | comment | added | Rene Pöschl | @Genom the pwr flag is independent on the electrical potential of the net in question. Its only purpose is to tell kicad where power is supplied to the board for the net it is connected to. Read all articles I linked for more details. | |
| Jan 21, 2019 at 1:40 | comment | added | Saren Tasciyan | This worked for VCC or 9V thanks a lot. However, there is no GND_FLAG. That issue still persists. | |
| Jan 21, 2019 at 1:38 | vote | accept | Saren Tasciyan | ||
| Jan 20, 2019 at 22:47 | history | edited | Rene Pöschl | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 20, 2019 at 22:45 | comment | added | Rene Pöschl | @TimWescott Yes the pwr_flag is in principal a nice feature. The problems mainly stem from how these things are implemented in detail. (using normal electrical pin types and the visibility flag make it seem like a hack more than a feature. And also limiting its functionality. I personally would put the power flag similarly as the non connected flag as a separate tool instead of misusing power output pins. That would make it more intuitive i think as it is then clearer to the user that there is a difference between power symbols and the power flag.) | |
| Jan 20, 2019 at 22:07 | comment | added | TimWescott | I actually like that KiCad requires this -- not only does it make you think about where the power's coming in to your board, it makes you document it so that others can see it, too. | |
| Jan 20, 2019 at 21:45 | history | edited | Rene Pöschl | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 20, 2019 at 21:36 | history | answered | Rene Pöschl | CC BY-SA 4.0 |