KiCad/Autorouter

Using a autorouter Kicad/FAQ#How do I manually route a PCB?"Bald Engineer: Never Trust The Autorouter"."Can you route better than an autorouter"."Autorouting as a first-pass layout". (FIXME: mention pouring a solid GND plane on the top and bottom of the board post-route) (FIXME: how to tell the autorouter to use 8 thou traces for signals, 12 thou traces for power) (FIXME: how to "fix up" all the GND pins that the autorouter doesn't connect?) (FIXME: say a few things about what sorts of circuits probably can't be successfully autorouted -- switch mode power converters, RF stuff, etc. -- vs. circuits that can easily be autorouted -- low-speed digital electronics, etc.) (Is linking to other tutorials on using the KiCad autorouter"Kicad Tutorial: Using the autorouter". adequate, or would a brief tutorial here be useful?) Installing an autorouter As of KiCad Version 5 (2018), integration of FreeRouting with KiCad is described at the FreeRouting.org website. (FIXME: Unable to add ref to the right place due to wikibooks complaining about URLs, giving up, too much unhelpful policy here). (FIXME: Procedural information below is outdated as of 2018, but it reflects the legacy of FreeRouting) (FIXME: this seems to work installing the FreeRouting autorouter tool on a fresh Ubuntu 14 install inside VirtualBox/Setting up a Virtual Machine/Ubuntu; perhaps mention what needs to change to install it on other Linux distros) (FIXME: mention other autorouters that use the Specctra interface) Origins and History of FreeRouting Alfons Wirtz wrote FreeRouting and maintained it for years.http://freerouting.net/ We are all grateful that Alfons Wirtz released the FreeRouting software as open-source software."The Freerouting project is now open source" People have suggested integrating FreeRouting into KiCad."Integrate freerouting into KiCad" To install FreeRouting on Ubuntu 14, get the FreeRouting source code:Who is maintaining the latest version? http://github.com/nikropht/FreeRouting or http://github.com/freerouting/freerouting or https://github.com/32bitmicro/Freerouting or https://github.com/corecode/freerouting or https://github.com/faerietree/shell__freerouting_convenience_script or someone else? cd ~/Documents sudo apt-get install git git clone https://github.com/nikropht/FreeRouting That creates a new directory ~/Documents/FreeRouting/ . Then get the "jh.jar" and "netx.jar" files: sudo apt-get install javahelp2 icedtea-netx-common Installing NetBeans with JDK 8 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install netbeans sudo apt-get install default-jdk If that doesn't work, open up your favorite web browser and download the installer:"How do I install Netbeans?". In your favorite web browser, open http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html Click the "Download NetBeans with JDK 8" button. Then accept the license agreement and download the appropriate bundle for your computer. Make that installer executable with cd ~/Downloads chmod u+x jdk*.sh then execute it ./jdk-<tab><enter> It pops up a window; hit "Next" a bunch of times. That installer puts a "NetBeans" icon on the desktop. Loading the FreeRouter Source into NetBeans Use the "NetBeans" icon on the desktop to start the NetBeans IDE. Inside that IDE, select File | New Project in the pull down menu. In this sheet select Java Project with existing sources, then Next. I told NetBeans the neame of the project is "FreeRouter". Then click the "Add Folder..." button, and in the browse window double-click on Documents, then single-click on FreeRouting, then hit OK. Then Next. Then Finish. Then choose the "Run" tab and select "Build Project". That gives a bunch of errors; fix them by: In the Property sheet on the left, right-click on the "FreeRouter" project, choose "Properties" in the op-up menu, then in the Categories list on the left choose Libraries. On the right, hit the "Add JAR/Folder" button. In the browser window that pops up, choose /usr/share/java/jh.jar then hit OK. Then in the Categories list on the left choose Web Start and on the right enable [Y] Enable Web Start. OK. Then choose the "Run" tab and select "Build Project". This time it should build with no errors. Then choose the "Run" tab and select "Run Project". A very small FreeRouter window will pop up. In that window, open the design file you exported from KiCad, and autoroute the PCB. Save the autorouted board, and re-import those routes back into KiCad. Further reading