Eagle import - graphic content turns to symbol without footprint

[hedefalk]

Asked to report this from the forum:

https://forum.kicad.info/t/tips-on-working-with-imported-eagle-boards/9816/39?u=hedefalk

So on import of this Eagle project:

https://github.com/pichenettes/eurorack/tree/2e09d0c20452763366d8aa490e41ac987fc0ebad/links/hardware_design/pcb

the graphics around name and such turns into a symbol without footprint and I get warnings in pcbnew because of this. Workaround just to remove them manually.

Please see screenshots on forum post.

Cheers,
Viktor

[Nick Østergaard (nickoe)]

Please add version information.

[hedefalk (hedefalk)]

Version 5.0.0-rc2-dev-124-g23f49f0

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

We could mark symbols without assigned footprints as power symbols, but it does not feel right. Perhaps we should simply add a notion of 'virtual' component that would serve also for items that should be represented in a BOM, but do not appear in PCB (body, cables, screws, etc.)

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

Making them power symbols is probably not a good idea although it would
probably work albeit with likely ERC errors. AFAIK, we don't have any
way to declare schematic symbols as virtual. The only other option that
I can think of is just don't assign a footprint to the symbol. This
will cause the netlist importer to complain about missing footprints but
we will just have to live with this. I also don't think we should
ignore the virtual symbols in the eagle schematic import. The virtual
concept is part of the new symbol file format.

On 3/22/2018 10:31 AM, Maciej Suminski wrote:
> We could mark symbols without assigned footprints as power symbols, but
> it does not feel right. Perhaps we should simply add a notion of
> 'virtual' component that would serve also for items that should be
> represented in a BOM, but do not appear in PCB (body, cables, screws,
> etc.)
>
> ** Changed in: kicad
> Importance: Undecided => Low
>
> ** Changed in: kicad
> Status: New => Triaged
>

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

We do not assign footprints to such components and as you have already said - netlist updater complains about it, but I do not consider it a major sin. In such case we should defer this to 6.0 and for now we keep the current behavior.

[Seth Hillbrand (sethh)]

By "mark as a power symbol", do you mean prefix the reference with "#"?

Currently, "#" is used as a "virtual" marker in the official libraries (see Graphic.lib) No pins, so ERC doesn't complain. Are there issue with this approach that are more complex?

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

If we are doing this already in our symbol libraries then I guess it's
something that users understand and accept. @Orson, I would go ahead
and make this change for v5 if it's not too much trouble.

On 3/22/2018 11:33 AM, Seth Hillbrand wrote:
> By "mark as a power symbol", do you mean prefix the reference with "#"?
>
> Currently, "#" is used as a "virtual" marker in the official libraries
> (see Graphic.lib) No pins, so ERC doesn't complain. Are there issue
> with this approach that are more complex?
>

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

I am not sure if '#' is really meaningful for this case. I have already tried to rename 'FRAME1' reference to '#FRAME1', but the netlist updater still reported a warning. It was muted only after changing the symbol type to power, without a preceding hash character in the reference.

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

Strange, I have just tested a logo from the Graphic library and it worked as you said. I need to dig a bit deeper then.

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision 434b385a95deab9946e81125a88acd658a8fb25e
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=434b385a95deab9946e81125a88acd658a8fb25e

[Maciej Suminski (orsonmmz)]

Well, everything worked as you described, I have no idea what made me think it did not work previously. Thanks for the tips!