kicad_utils

Random scripts for KiCad

kicad_release.sh

This will do the following things:

• Call kicad_cli to create Gerbers, XY, and drill reports
• Packs up everything to zip, tar and rar archives
• It names the archive with a timestamp and git version
• Opens gerbv and evince with the generated output

By default, it uses the old gerbv program from gEDA, but this can be changed.

Prerequisites

zip, tar, bzip2, git, evince, gerbv, bash

Usage

kicad_release.sh your_kicad_pcb_file.kicad_pcb

build_kicad.sh

This is a small script that configures KiCad source, and compiles it. It sets the -j parameter of make to the number of online processor count. It also sets the nice value to the lowest priority to the lowest.

It creates a build directory, and all artifacts are stored there.

Usage

• Check out the sources of KiCad
• Get all the required prerequisites
• cd to the sources directory
• Run the build script
• cd to the build directory, and issue 'sudo make install'

bomer2.py

This is a python script that creates nice BOMs from a schematic using a database backend.

It generates a CSV file that can be further processed.

Run the script like this:

bomer2.py -d <path/to/sqlite/database/file> -o <output_file_name.csv> <path/to/top/level/kicad_sch/file>

Database descriptor

You can find a sample database in the db directory. There's also a kicad_dbl file provided. You might change the 'levcsi_database' name to something more sensible.

If you place a component with the choser, KiCad will automatically add id=xxx field. The bomer2.py script uses this to reference the component.