2022-07-25_-_switching_from_eagle_to_kicad

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 19:17:49 +0000

2022-07-25 - switching from Eagle to KiCad

i used to use eagle CAD for my PCB designs for nearly 15 years. it was free to use for non-commercial projects (with some limitations, that most of the time were ok for me). at some point i even got a commercial license, as i occasionally did some board design for others and earned money. it used to be very cheap, so it quickly payed off.

fast forward some ears and Autodesk bought Eagle. in a the very next release it just stopped working well under Linux. first of all debian dropped it from its repo, as it was no longer allowed to be repackaged. then it turned out that it was really hard to run, in a first place, due to library and dependencies issues. finally it became subscription-based, instead of one-off license as it used to be.

i still used my old version though. first via VM, then as eagle docker image (based on old debian)… and finally decided – that's it! time to move on.

dawn of new era

doing quick research on the net, it became very clear that KiCad is the way to go. there are tons of tutorials, but my favorite was Shawn Hymel's intro to KiCad. it was easy to learn. components database is now enormous – far better than my old Eagle had. it's also so easy to create new models, when needed, i no longer consider it a much of a fuss. Gerber exports work out of the box, too. but most importantly thanks to being opensource and designed to be modular, KiCad allows some truly awesome things, like automatic generation of:

gerber files
3D PCB previews
3D models of board (it's just awesome thing for designing 3D printed enclosure!!)
BOM list

the sole fact of having 3D visualizations like this:

is game-changing, as you can clearly see where you're missing some extra space for connectors, capacitors, that could lead out to making soldering a painful task. but that's just the beginning! having this 3D view, you can also export it as a 3D model! to do so it's enough to generate STEP file of the board from KiCad and convert it to STL:

kicad2step -o stuff.step stuff.kicad_pcb
./step2stl stuff.step stuff.stl

where step2stl is a simple python script¹⁾:

import sys
sys.path.append("/usr/lib/freecad/lib")
import FreeCAD
import Part
s = Part.Shape()
s.read(sys.argv[1])
s.exportStl(sys.argv[2], 2.5)

and we get our 3D model:

that can be imported to OpenSCAD and used as a reference for enclosure design! hell – with a bit of preprocessing you can actually 3D print it, and use as a physical reference of a final board! :D

summary

the funny thing is that back in a day i did consider KiCad, but Eagle won as easier to use with far better build in components list, not to mention other features (we're talking early 2000s here). now thanks to KiCad community and open, modular design, Eagle is a no-match for it.

i'm currently exploring automation possibilities as a part of toy satellite project that i create for my children to play (both are space nerds ;)). while the project is trivial from electronic perspective, it's an excellent playground on end-to-end automation of building: software, hardware and enclosure. stay tuned for more! :)

oh… btw: did a mentioned that KiCad can import Eagle projects natively? ;) bye, bye Eagle – we had our moments, but it's over now…

¹⁾

taken from freecad's forum, with minor modifications

2022-07-25_-_unwanted_telemarketing

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 18:38:06 +0000

2022-07-25 - unwanted telemarketing

this one gonna be short and on an unusual topic. but let's start from the beginning…

dark past

every1, at certain point, have received some form of a telemarketing that was not ordered, welcomed or (in anyway) wanted. i used to receive quite a lot of these, back in a day. it usually went like:

me: hello?
tm: hi. we have wonderful product, blablabla…
me: where do you have this phone number from?
tm: computer generates numbers for us to call.

GDPR times

…and this was a bit of a problem, as the rules were vague. until one day, when EU came with GDPR (also known as “RODO” in PL) and rules became clear:

for any call from any company – they need to get my explicit consent on receiving that, *before* calling.
consent cannot be obligatory.
even if i agreed at some point, i can always change my mind (and the process of recalling the consent shall be simple!).

so now the discussion goes like… no wait – there's no discussion! :D because breaking GDPR can (and often does) lead to financial punishments, companies are very careful not to get in the way of these rules. i honestly do not remember when was the last time i've received unwanted telemarketing call, which is great! however life happens – this year i did received 1 such a call. it went like this:

me: hello?
tm: hi. we have wonderful product, blablabla…
me: where do you have this phone number from?
tm: computer generates numbers for us to call.
me: what is the regulation, based which you are calling me? i have not consent for such calls.

…and tm hanged up here! it was annoying for at least 2 reasons:

it was clearly unlawful call
telemarketer did not even bothered to reply

enforcing compliance

what can you do about that? there are 2 main departments you can report it to:

UKE (based on telecommunications regulations)
UODO (based on GDPR/RODO)

for UKE (PL: Urzad Komunikacji Elektronicznej), you can report via contact form. the only effect is that they inspect most notorious offenders. but, it's still worth noting, as it bumps up offends counter by +1. :)

for UODO (PL: Urzad Ochrony Danych Osobowych) you can follow this instruction, by selecting filing complain in electronic form, which redirects you to ePUAP page for filing complains to UODO. it's a really simple form to fill up (basically describe the incident in words) and things roll on their own from that point.

final note

just for the record – GDPR goes *far* beyond unwanted phone calls. these annoying phone calls, so common in the past, are just a good example, how citizen can benefit from GDPR protection. i recall when GDPR was about to come live, ppl were complaining a lot about “extra paper work” and generally “who cares”.

in USA however there were no such regulations, and not only telemarketers but also robocalls were actually a big thing there (not sure about status quo now). in this sense EU made a preemptive attack on such practices, before they became a daily nightmare to regular ppl affected by it. EU – thank you for making that happen! :*

BaSzErr - blog:2022:07:25