There does not appear to be any way that I can find to generate a simple CSV BOM from the schematic. No mention in the documentation, have I missed something.
Hi Ricky,
Is this for Scheme-it? If so, “BOM” tab at the top, export, choose to include reference designators or all components, click download. If this doesn’t help, please click here for a questions or comments link at the bottom of the page: “questions or comments”, this should be able to help.
Sorry, talking about Pads maker schematic layout. It only works if the parts (the symbol for a component))going into the schematic have been downloaded from your web site.
This is fine, but for generic parts like SMD caps and resistors, a decision about the part is usually made after the design, since it will be based on availability and price at the time of assembly.
I have found that if I put dummy variables as place holders into the part parameter list, that it can be made to work, but talk about clunky. Because the schematic files are only saved in a binary format, there is not even the possibility of using a script to extract information from it.
PADs is a fine product, I used it for many years while in employment with a company. However, I don’t think that the way PADs maker is set up is going to encourage people to move on to a full blown version of PADs, basic things like a BOM have to be customisable. PADs maker has some merits, but it needs some work, I probably have been spoilt having used a full blown version of PADs. However, product placement is everything, it’s rather like Apple getting people to use their products in schools from a primary age, get them hooked and they will stay with it for life.
There will no doubt be other issues, I have already found that in the layout, automatic backup can be a problem, it won’t work if a file name save checkbox is not set. In that case, why have the checkbox there at all. I will persevere with it, only because I have the time, I am semi retired, and being familiar with PADs, using this software reduces the learning curve. If the Pro version had a few extra features, like sensible BOM creation, it might be a winner, but perhaps that’s not what Siemens wants, after all, they would rather be selling there more expensive commercial line up. If you can’t get it right at the bottom end, how many people will consider it for the top end?
Gripe ends,
cheers,
Ric
Hello again Ric,
We are looking into this and will update this post when we find something out.
Further to this issue, I can make the BOM work if I put a component in the parameter “ManufacturerPN”. for a resistor it would need to be value-chip size,
10K-1608m, for example. the 1608m helps to distinguish it from other chip sizes, since there is no provision in the BOM for outputting the pad information.
For discretes this is useful, as I have said, I would not normally pin a manufacturer or Digikey part number down at schematic entry time.
So it can be made to work, but it is not ideal.
Thanks Ric, noted.
Ric,
Sorry to hear of the inconveniences the BOM tool may be causing.
This particular BOM tool was designed with a truly atomic library in mind. Meaning that if a part is placed in the schematic it would have all of the data needed to be an order-able part number. This would force the user too fully interchange parts if they needed to make a substitution (this preserves the chain of documentation). In an environment with teams collaborating together, this is necessary.
The workaround is, as you said, using dummy data as a placeholder in order to get the BOM tool to separate out each line item.
Thanks,
Reid Landsrud