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Fast part creation in KiCad and InvenTree

Project description

Ki-nTree

Fast part creation in KiCad and InvenTree

License: GPL v3.0 Python Versions PyPI Tests | Linting | Publishing Coverage Status

Demo Videos :fast_forward: Full Demo :fast_forward: KiCad Demo

Introduction

Ki-nTree (pronounced "Key Entry" or "Key 'n' Tree") aims to:

  • automate part creation of KiCad library parts
  • automate part creation of InvenTree parts
  • synchronize parts data between KiCad and InvenTree

Ki-nTree works with:

Ki-nTree was developped by @eeintech for SPARK Microsystems, who generously accepted to make it open-source!

Get Started

Requirements

  • Ki-nTree is currently tested for Python 3.7 to 3.9 versions.
  • Ki-nTree requires a Digi-Key production API instance. To create one, go to https://developer.digikey.com/. Create an account, an organization and add a production API to your organization. Save both Client ID and Secret keys.

Here is a video to help with the different steps

Installation (system wide)

  1. Install using Pip
$ pip install -U kintree
  1. Run Ki-nTree
$ kintree

Run in virtual environment (contained)

Linux / MacOS

Create a virtual environment and activate it with:

$ python3 -m venv env-kintree
$ source env-kintree/bin/activate

Then follow the steps from the installation section.

Windows

In Git Bash, use the following commands to create and activate a virtual environment:

$ python3 -m venv env-kintree
$ source env-kintree/Scripts/activate

For any other Windows terminal, refer to the official documentation

Packages

Arch Linux

Ki-nTree is available on Arch Linux's AUR as python-kintree.

Usage Instructions

Settings

  1. With Ki-nTree GUI open, click on "Settings > Digi-Key" and fill in both Digi-Key API Client ID and Secret keys (optional: click on "Test" to get an API token)
  2. Click on "Settings > Mouser" and fill in the Mouser part search API key
  3. Click on "Settings > KiCad", browse to the location where KiCad symbol and footprint libraries are stored on your computer then click "Save"
  4. If you intend to use InvenTree with this tool, click on "Settings > InvenTree" and fill in your InvenTree server address and credentials then click "Save" (optional: click on "Test" to get an API token)

Get Digi-Key API token

Show steps (click to expand)

Enter your Digi-Key developper account credentials then login. The following page will appear (user@email.com will show your email address):

Click on "Allow", another page will open.
Click on the "Advanced" button, then click on "Proceed to localhost (unsafe)" at the bottom of the page:

On Chrome, if the "Proceed to localhost (unsafe)" link does not appear, enable the following flag: chrome://flags/#allow-insecure-localhost

Lastly, a new page will open with a "You may now close this window." message, proceed to get the token.

Part Number Search

Ki-nTree currently supports APIs for the following electronics suppliers: Digi-Key, Mouser and LCSC.

  1. In the main window, enter the part number and select the supplier in drop-down list, then click "CREATE". It will start by fetching part data using the supplier's API
  2. In the case Digi-Key has been selected and the API token is not found or expired, a browser window will pop-up. To get a new token: follow those steps
  3. Once the part data has been successfully fetched from the supplier's API, you will be prompted to add/confirm/edit the part information, followed by the Category and Subcategory to use for this part (Ki-nTree tries to match them automatically)
  4. Then, you will be prompted with selecting the KiCad symbol library, template and footprint library to use for this part
  5. It will take some time to complete the part creation in InvenTree and/or KiCad, once it finishes you'll be notified of the result
  6. Finally, if the part was created or found in InvenTree, your browser will automatically open a new tab with the part information

Enjoy!

For any problem/bug you find, please report an issue.

Development

Requirements

You need python>=3.7 and poetry.

You can install poetry by following the instructions on its official website, by using pip install poetry or by installing a package on your Linux distro.

Setup and run

  1. Clone this repository
$ git clone https://github.com/sparkmicro/Ki-nTree
  1. Install the requirements into a poetry-managed virtual environment
$ poetry install
Installing dependencies from lock file
...
Installing the current project: kintree (0.4.99)

Note: the version is not accurate (placeholder only)

  1. Run Ki-nTree in the virtual environment
$ poetry run python -m kintree_gui

or

$ poetry shell
$ python -m kintree_gui

Build

  1. Make sure you followed the previous installation steps, then run:
$ poetry build
Building kintree (0.4.99)
  - Building sdist
  - Built kintree-0.4.99.tar.gz
  - Building wheel
  - Built kintree-0.4.99-py3-none-any.whl
  1. Exit the virtual environment (Ctrl + D on Linux; you can also close the terminal and reopen it in the same folder).

    Run pip install dist/<wheel_file>.whl with the file name from the previous step. For example:

pip install dist/kintree-0.4.99-py3-none-any.whl
  1. You can now start Ki-nTree by typing kintree in the terminal, provided that your python dist path is a part of your $PATH.

Roadmap

Priority goes to implementing new features over GUI improvements
Open to new ideas and pull requests :smiley:

Versions 0.4.x or later

New Features
  • Allow user to decide the category code to use for IPN
  • Add "Synchronize" menu option to pull InvenTree parts data into KiCad
  • Fetch Digi-Key price breakdowns and add them to Supplier Part (InvenTree)
  • Add option to add as alternate (supplier part) to existing part
  • Document configuration and backend
GUI
  • Migrate to Qt? (see discussion)
  • Create loading animation for API searches (asyncio)

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