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Comment by jareklupinski | Hacker News Reader

I just got into a great flow where I have a couple ULPs that export BOM and CPL files for JLCPCB, been very painless way of getting stuff made for a while

I don't want to lock myself into EasyEDA, and trying KiCAD a few years ago wasn't the easiest switchover...

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KiCAD has plugins that will bounce Gerber files in exactly the format JLCPCB wants, including assembly and BOM info, with one click.

v7 is quite good. There are a couple UI irritations remaining but the core feature set is awesome.

KiCAD has improved massively since version 5, although the switch will still take some brain-contortion. IMHO it's worth it, and the sooner you take the plunge the better.

How are the spice integrations for kicad now? I haven't used it in probably 10 years so I'm not sure where it's at anymore. I also had trouble using it for laying out traces where length/resistance was critical (high frequency signaling). Altium has been the only thing I've touched recently, but I also rarely do circuit design now, so a "friendly" interface is nice. That's why I prefer using fusion 360 to solidworks or nx.

I don't use it but I have heard both good things and bad things about it. One of the big limitations is the fact they use ngspice for their simulation and many models are encrypted. So lots of folks use it as a frontend for ltspice. TL;DR, it can be challenging, but there is support for it.

I used EasyEDA for a while because I liked the interface but after coming back to KiCAD a few times it had gotten good enough that I didn't look back. That was 3 years ago now.

KiCad v7 is wonderful.

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