Create a PCB variant system

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior]

Some times we create a schematic/pcb that can be populated with different components or even with different values to the same components (part designators).
Create a system that allow to separate the different manufactures codes or which one is assembled in each variant (and this information available on BoM XML) could be a interesting feature.

Some references about how other software use it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3omDgrSIco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA_XJIuEY4o

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

Other EDA that recently had add variant system
http://labcenter.s3.amazonaws.com/movies/v8/designVariants.html

[Nick Østergaard (nickoe)]

By board variant, do you mean that the PCB artwork is the same, but only the BOM is different?

KiCost works with board variants defined with other properties added to the symbols in the schematic, see https://kicost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage.html#schematic-variants

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

Yes, @nicke. And I alredy use KiCost.

I was thinking that this could affect not just the BOM (with different values and assembly/not-assembly propriety), but also the 3D visualization as shown in Altium (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3omDgrSIco)

[Xavi Torres (xtm)]

Hi all.

Just to comment that variants use to affect the pick & place file too.

Regards

[Rene Poeschl (poeschlr)]

And the 3d viewer might also be another thing that would be good if it also allowed showing different variants (same of course with step export for your mechanical engineer)

Adding this would automatically solve https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1827964

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/2131