In all the years that I've been building electronics projects, I've never before used a schematic capture program (or EDA of any kind, unless you count circuit simulators). The closest I've ever come is using Visio with a component outline library. That's really just a drawing assistant; it doesn't “know” anything about the circuit. KiCad, on the other hand, can generate net lists (for SPICE, for example) and directly generate the artwork for printed circuit boards. Most of the (eighty bazillion) online prototype PCB houses will directly take KiCad (or Eagle) files, so presumably it would be pretty darned simple to get boards made for homebrew projects. One of these days I might actually try that, but this is not that day. :)
If anybody actually wants this schematic, I'd be happy to share it. It would make more sense to wait until I've actually finished, though!
I still want the schematic, but this is a good start. Just knowing of the existence of the prox sensor IC is mostly what I wanted.
ReplyDeleteI haven't drawn a schematic by hand for a long time. Because of my job, I have access to some pretty good EDA tools. The circuit simulators I help develop are all focused at high frequency analog circuits, however, and aren't much good for most digital and interface work. If you need to know what that PCB is doing at 40 GHz, though, I'm your guy.