[Arm-netbook] Schematic and PCB layout CAD files

[Paul Boddie]

On Saturday 18. May 2019 18.49.32 Jakub Kákona wrote:
> 
> And yes, Arun, unavailability of easily sharable CAD design formats is a
> blocker of potential widespread use by the community.  But I personally
> hope, there will be enough appeal of open design files that I or someone
> else redesign it in KiCAD.

I guess you, Jakub, must be involved with the following...

https://github.com/MLAB-project/Modules
https://github.com/MLAB-project/kicad-mlab

Does that mean that the SoC modules referenced there are KiCad designs?

On the topic of KiCad and designs related to the EOMA68-A20 cards, it is worth 
noting that the Olimex A64-OLinuXino board schematic and layout is available 
in KiCad format:

https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/tree/master/HARDWARE/A64-OLinuXino/A64-OLinuXino_Rev_D

It seems like earlier boards were done with Eagle, but I guess that they made 
the jump to KiCad in the last couple of years. An important aspect of the 
above board is the availability of component/footprint libraries:

https://github.com/OLIMEX/KiCAD

I am not going to argue in favour of KiCad's usability or otherwise, 
particularly since my computer probably doesn't have the performance to make 
it work very well, but it was possible to at least play around with the A64-
OLinuXino design once I had set up some symbolic links to let KiCad find the 
libraries. (Also KiCad 5.0.2+dfsg1-1 was needed - from Debian testing - rather 
than the surprisingly earlier 5.0.0+dfsg1-1 found in Debian unstable.)

So perhaps someone who is better at KiCad might have some fun adapting that 
design. It is open (source) hardware, after all. There were a few people on 
this list a few years ago who might have given this a go, but I don't know 
what happened to them.

Paul