Import schematics and footprints from LCSC

[fatjon_beqa]

Hi everyone,

I am a Mechatronics engineer, and every time I have to design a mechanical part whether being just an enclosure or an entire robotic arm, Fusion is the best way to go. Easy to use, fast, powerful, runs smoothly, etc.
When I heard about the Electronics update, I was hyped!!!

The ability to do it all in one software, the schematics, the PCB, enclosure ... amazing!

Unfortunately, my excitement flooded right away!

The  problem:
You can call me lazy, but I ditched powerful PCB designing softwares such as Altium Designer and Eagle for a much simpler and less powerful software. And that is EasyEDA.

I did this just because of their integrated component library from LCSC. They have their own warehouse of electric components and for every single component they have pre-designed schematics and footprints. All you have to do is search their website for the component you need, get the component number and search that component from the EasyEDA. And done! You now have the schematic of that component plus the footprint of it. No time wasted on that trivial task. And one of the best parts, after finishing the design, you can generate BOM and order the components directly from their warehouse.  100% footprint match at all times. 0% time wasted designing every schematics for every component and their footprint. 

If you find a way how we can use schematics and footprints that are on LCSC (just like EasyEDA does), I'm immediately  switching to Fusion Electronics for PCB design too.

Also can we open Gerber files designed on another software and edit them in Fusion?

Thank you for your time.

[edwin.robledo]

Hi fatjon_beqa,

We greatly appreciate your participation on the Fusion 360 Electronics forum, and taking the time to provide us your recommendation.  There is nothing better than having your assets you require for your design readily available. We do have a team of librarians that are continuously adding components to our current extensive available repository of libraries. The Fusion 360 library editor does provide easy to use tools for you to create your components easily such as:

Our IPC Compliant Package Generator which will simultaneously build your Footprint and 3D package by just transferring the values from the manufacturer specification sheet.

Creating the appropriate schematic symbol can be done with minor effort by leveraging pin array tool. Just need to define your prefered shape and amount of pins and in a matter of seconds your symbol representation appear.

Please visit our Library Feedback HUB to add your ideas regarding assets that you suggest be added to our repository of libraries. 

At this time we do have a Gerber import routing by means of a User Language Program (ULP). There are multiple formats of Gerber files, at this time our ULP only support the most simple format.  The imported image can be imported and used for reference only, not really for editing. These capabilities will be improving with time. 

[jstrautman]

With regards to Gerber importing... we would greatly appreciate a quick & easy way to import a set of gerbers and then use that to work with Fusion 360 and be able to create a CAD model of the board.  We are constantly given just gerbers for a board and expected to produce pinbed tests, fixtures, etc. and it is very long and tedious process to get that information using the standard ULP and older methods in Eagle.

[birdpump]

I also love Easy EDA just because of the integrated LCSC library. It would be really nice if Fusion 360 could add it too. 

[yaqoubdesign]

I talked to them a few months ago and they said they don't allow sharing their 3D models . You must use their software if you want this. I think that includes footprints too. I hope they change this

[r.stiebel]

You can import LCSC Part to Kikad. Someone made a script for this.

So there should be a way we can get the LCSC Parts as a LCSC.lbr, too.

I desperatly need it!

Roland

[elliott2021]

I would happily pay for a third-party plug-in that would integrate their parts library... just for the sake of ordering. I would jump straight over to fusion or eagle in a heartbeat.

[jeffwPP4JQ]

I'll chime in to add that I also think an LCSC library would significantly boost Fusion 360 usage. JLCPCB is a sister company (affiliated with LCSC and EasyEDA). They produce excellent pre-assembled PCB boards/design for an incredibly affordable price. But you need to use "their" parts from their inventory. "Their" parts are really just LCSC's inventory. So, if there were an LCSC library then everybody who uses JLCPCB's service would be a strong candidate for adopting Fusion 360.

[yaqoubdesign]

Looks like Easy EDA ( their schematic capture software) now has a ‘pro’
version that allows importing and exporting- including all of their parts.

[matt.berggren]

To be sure, this sounds like (and correct me if I’m wrong) what you are asking for is the library so you can use their assembly service, correct?  It’s the turnkey combination of parts, inventory and pick and place efficiency you’re aiming for?  Curious - how frequently is this happening in commercial product?  

Reason I ask is that for volume production this model looks to break down in qty where price sensitivity is important but just as important would be process control and process management.  We have integrations with SnapEDA and Ultralibrarian which collectively are used on almost all Distributor and Manufacturer websites (IC OEMs, not PCB mfg).  Using JLPCB once or twice for prototypes I agree this is pretty clean but they can’t fab and assemble every PCB Id be asked to design and this seems like the point this breaks down, no?  

Would love to hear the opinions of folks re: what you do in Volume Mfg and if this model works for you.  We explored working with the PNP machine vendors as the feeders and machine head, vacuum,  travel, etc is all vital and they know best what their machines a capable of-.  IPC and EIA lead the standards on these items along with JEDEC.  They work with the machine tools to optimize for volume.  

Nothing stopping JL from building an integrated library in Fusion but it sounds like they want that to only work with EasyEDA.  If that’s the case then it seems like a pretty rate-limited business model for hobbyists more than professionals making larger volumes.  Not blaming them for the business model, it’s a choice but if they don’t want the integration there is little we can do to compel them.  If they wanted to- we would be happy to assist them in making it a success.

best regards,

matt - Autodesk

[matt.berggren]

I agree and we have discussed this in the past.  If nothing else, creating fixtures and jigs using an intermediate format would be nice.  Let me raise this with our product group and see what we landed on in terms of priority.

[matt.berggren]

Just a few random thoughts on the Import Script from a KiCAD user.  Not saying we can't do it, BUT:  

We have to look at their license agreement before we can do this.  Unfortunately, as a commercial company and not an Open Source project, there is real litigation risk if we violate their EULA.  For years people reverse engineered file formats and when it's an individual doing it, they are assuming 100% of the legal risks.  Now whether that extends to a commercial company using the Open Source script isnt something I know anything about.  I dont meddle in legal stuff so I wont suggest that I know but I think it's worthy of checking out if you intend to use something like this.  What is frustrating for us of course is that the kinds of legal risks are not evenly distributed however I recall the Free Route incident years back and that ended with a very bright person removing their Open Source autorouter from the web and not continuing development on it.  Copies existed but those were likewise very risky for anyone syndicating them for similar reasons and the companies that do get legal teams involved are very serious about sending a message when these things happen which violate their terms of use or make private technology public.  

On the flip side, good competition (IMO) means having something which is reasonably "open" but also competing on the abilities of the engineering teams behind the tools to differentiate.  That yields an altogether more user-oriented market.  Autodesk has been doing this since the earliest days of the Autocad API and even has a developer program and app-store for Fusion which is how SnapEDA and UltraLibrarian integrated with Fusion.  Both companies are competitors yet, both companies compete in a healthy way in the spirit of providing users with the best content.  Autocad's API spawned thousands of businesses built on Autocad core geometry and rendering back-end.  We have a VERY well documented API for Fusion in Mechanical Design (Python and C#) and we even use VSCode with this.  We would hope to one day do the same for the Electronics API in Fusion and move away from ULP but there is more to this than meets the eye.  

<Exit Ted Talk-rant> 🙂

Hope you folks can understand why these are never one-dimensional problems (totally intended) and we have to consider our downside risks and partner rather than just reverse engineer stuff.  We have all of the experience on the team to do these things in short-order but what we would love is for you folks to insist that these 3rd parties you want to ingrate with Fusion, approach us and ask for help.  We are (almost) never averse to this and it is in the community's interest for us ALL to serve the users.

Best regards,

matt - Autodesk

[hayesgm]

For those still interested, I found a convenient way to import from LCSC to Fusion Electronics.

There's a good python tool for importing from LCSC to KiCad files here: https://github.com/uPesy/easyeda2kicad.py

You can run:

pip install easyeda2kicad

and then:

easyeda2kicad --full --lcsc_id=C2040

That will create some files, e.g. from the docs:

> By default, all librairies are saved in C:/Users/your_name/Documents/Kicad/easyeda2kicad/, with :

>  * easyeda2kicad.kicad_sym file for Kicad v6.x symbol library

>  * easyeda2kicad.lib file for Kicad v5.x legacy symbol library

>  * easyeda2kicad.pretty/ folder for footprint libraries

>  * easyeda2kicad.3dshapes/ folder for 3d models (in .WRL and .STEP format)

Those would be easily imported into Fusion Electronics thanks to the new KiCad import integration, except they are KiCad v6 and Fusion Electronics requires KiCad v7 or above. To solve this, if you're lucky, simply go into `~/Documents/Kicad/easyeda2kicad/easyeda2kicad.kicad_sym` and

Change:

```

(version 20211014)

```

to

```

(version 20220914)

```

Then, you can import that file into Fusion Electronics and with any luck you should have a component, symbol, footprint and 3d model. You may need to tweak things a bit, e.g. to connect the 3d model, but overall, the flow isn't much worse than using the official SnapEDA plugin.

Hope this helps someone.

-g