KiCad migration

[vikulin]

Would you like to migrate to KiCad? I working on another project to adapt your project for photo multiplier tubes. Your schema can become an universal module for SiPM and PMT. The main objective to migrate to KiCad is a free and opensource with wide community and components support.

I made a schema and doing tracing. Sending a screenshot of the schematic:

[NuclearPhoenixx]

Hi there, yes I've though about it. It would be the obvious choice in the world of EDAs, definitely agree with you there. If it weren't for EasyEDA I would've certainly designed everything in KiCad.

I've simply never taken the time to properly deal with it, because I didn't really see the need. I know full well that it can be problematic to use EasyEDA since it's closed source, basically web-only, and you can only access it with their account. So technically they could change things tomorrow and make everything paid access or similar.

The primary reason I keep using it frankly is the ease of use of going to LCSC, looking for parts and then importing all the schematics, models, pinouts and things with next to no effort. As well as the one-click order options for parts and PCBs. The service side of things is just very well-made.

Since I clearly don't have much experience at all with KiCad, please tell me what other benefits a migration would result in, other than the obviously better "open-sourcedness" of the files. I guess since there are many KiCad users, it would be easier for them to modify like in your case.

[vikulin]

I used to be skeptical about KiCad. Main pros I saw the app supports Altium Footprints, Symbols. You would need to assign it manually because KiCad hasn't implemented support for such large DB like Celestial. As result PCB and Schema prototyping took me at most 3 days vs Altium with the same schema (your project) and conditions took me 7 days with lower quality PCB. Of course I had already built footprints before I started new prototyping in KiCad and I reused it in KiCad so the comparison was not 100% accurate. But definitely KiCad is my favorite prototyping framework summarizing all factors. As I have already said KiCad is capable to reuse all kind of footprints and symbols as Altium, EasyEDA and other. For a small and medium project as your that wouldn't be a problem to import it for each components. For larger industrial applications with multiboards and thousands components this factor perhaps has a negative impact. Ready for use large database decreases prototyping efforts in this case.

Here is a list of available footprints import:

[vikulin]

Other factors, such as usability and practical use cases you can find in Youtube videos. There are plenty of such materials.

[NuclearPhoenixx]

Okay thanks, I'll look into it. I'll change this thread to a discussion the meantime, so that others might voice their opinion too!

[vikulin]

Added v0.0.4 in git here: https://github.com/vikulin/OpenGammaKit .
In order to pull the project from git correctly use git clone --recurse-submodules command.

[NuclearPhoenixx]

That's for the standard SiPM version and not the PMT one, right?

[vikulin]

Yes. I will separate different hardware versions between branches. Main branch is reserved for SiPM version only.

[NuclearPhoenixx]

Ok I was confused for a second, because it looks a lot different. I'm curious to see how it will perform, please keep me updated!

[vikulin]

The PCB design was made from scratch. I took your schematic and components. Also I removed debug sockets for Sig and PSU outputs. I might keep it if I had to redesign it for other components but all operational amplifiers and other values are the same as in your schematic.
Sure, I will send you performance test results and other data when I have the PCB assembly done.

[vikulin]

I'm waiting for my PCB manufacturer now. Let me know if that works for you. BOM won't be 100% accurate because some of components were added as a generics and its footprints were assigned manually. That is known issue and it's a subject for the further improvement.