From Eagle to KiCad

For Xmas 2016 I gave myself a little time to test KiCad as a replacement of Eagle.

Even if I used it for very few hours, I could not get the right feeling with Eagle interface and most of the boards in my wishlist would not fit the free version limit.

So I jumped in the Hack-A-Day tutorial series on "Creating a PCB in Everything" and tried KiCad. I love their old-school keyboard shortcuts. I love the way the interface responds when drawing a schematic diagram. I could easily (cough... I had to) design my own symbols for Nixie and VFD and their respective footprint.

So far it has been a positive and productive experience with ZM1332/5870S and IV-6 drawn in KiCad, both symbol and footprint.

I need to define a couple more tube display components and then I'll work on my first PCB to send to a fab house.

Meanwhile I keep up-to-date my own KiCad libraries on github.