BOM Management Tools/Guides

[ausshir]

Ordering parts and combining them with some contract assembly places can be a pain. We need a more consistent way to track what/where/how much of each part we buy at the design stage instead of afterwards..

MacroFab Specs

Part	X	Y	Rotation	Side	Type	XSize	YSize	Value	Footprint	Populate	MPN
R1	1200.00	900.00	180	1	1	40.0	20.0	1K	0402-RES	1	MF-CAP-0402-27pF

Note that MacroFab seems to be able to figure out the positioning stuff automatically from KiCad files. Only the Italic ones seem to be needed.

PCBWay Specs

No.	Manufacturer	Manufacturer PN / Description	Distributor PN	Package	Value	Qty	RefDefs	Type	Note
1		C-EUC0402_TI		0402	220nF	31	C1-C14，C16-C46，C137	SMT

Since PCBWay is not fully automated like MacroFab, as long as some of the info is there we should be able to sort it out. For this reason I think we should aim for the first format.

[ausshir]

I made the recent parts order using https://github.com/Jeff-Ciesielski/Boms-Away
It's a nice portable python2 app using wxpython and sqlalchemy. Works well on my setup and for my workflow to keep things simple and save all supplier info in KiCad projects.

Lots of other options here as well (and more interesting library management tools):
https://github.com/xesscorp/kicad-3rd-party-tools