Converting Eagle to Kicad

[darkhalf]

I've been wanting to rebuild the @revaldinho CPC Sixrom card and are having issues. I'm wanting to add changes (JTAG connector and change Xilinx from 5V PLCC to  3.3V VQFP with regulator) and do this inside Kicad
https://github.com/revaldinho/cpc_ram_expansion/wiki/CPC-Sixrom-Card

Apparently I can convert from Eagle to Kicad if the files are saved in later Eagle versions (V9)


Whilst its great to have these on Github, the toolchain is so old, that sourcing and configuring it has taken quite a bit of time and I'm not even half way through yet.
 
Steps
1. There are BRD files inside the Eagle releases folder (noting here that Eagle 6.4 is required)
https://github.com/revaldinho/cpc_ram_expansion/tree/master/eagle_releases

For anyone trying to get Eagle downloads for older versions, it is very difficult to locate. What I did find was the Cadsoft FTP server (RIP) was archived and contains most versions (including Eagle 6.6 which can load these BRD files)
https://archive.org/download/falconk_archivebot_ftp_cadsoft_de_20170121

This uses Warcat to extract the files. I tried various PERL versions but those had issues. This one works:
https://warcat-rs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/downloads.html

*Edit* other versions (1.0 - 2.4)
https://alkesgroup.broadinstitute.org/Eagle/downloads/old/
Version 4.08
https://archive.org/details/spidla-elektro2

2. I would also like to get a SCH schematic for this and started with the 6 ROM source folder:
https://github.com/revaldinho/cpc_ram_expansion/tree/master/cpc_sixrom/pcb

What we see in here is a netlist file, footer file and a TCSH script which uses fiies in the common_pcb folders:
https://github.com/revaldinho/cpc_ram_expansion/tree/master/common_pcb
https://github.com/revaldinho/netlister

So these scripts convert the netlist to PCB files using some Jython Netlister program. Like most people I'm running Windows and have Cygwin and Msys/Mingw to do some Unix stuff.

This is looking a bit involved but we give it a shot:
https://www.jython.org/download
Install this and add it to the MSYS path

Code Select Expand

export PATH="/c/tools/jython/bin:$PATH"
Then to install TCSH to msys

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pacman -S tcsh
The run the README TENEX CSH script. There are some errors like missing CLASSPATH variables

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setenv CLASSPATH ""
Also incorrect hard coded folders inside the scripts (README and common_pcb/Makefile that need fixing) and problems with using MSYS drive mapping with /c/ translating to C: incorrectly. So those are fixed in both files

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make cpc_sixrom.scr
Finally this works, and we have an Eagle SCR script file and the NETlist files to build the schematic.


3. Attempt to load the SCR file inside Eagle and get a schematic to use with our BRD files and update

We start getting errors. Unknown layer:

# Netlist cpc_sixrom
Layer Top;
Grid Inch;

ChatGPT says this is a very old netlister (early 2000s)

The .scr file is intended for Eagle only: you would normally open Eagle, run the .scr script, and Eagle builds a schematic and board file for you.

.v → .net + .scr → run in Eagle 4–6 → builds .sch automatically.

After rolling back to Eagle 5.6 and then Eagle 4.16 and then 4.08 still no joy also with error 'Device not found' for

"ADD E2,5"

So the devices are in the netlister repository. There is a newer Eagle LBR (50 pin connector)
https://github.com/revaldinho/netlister/tree/master/Eagle%20Lib
But then these older LIB files:
https://github.com/revaldinho/netlister/tree/master/lib

So apparently LIB files are in Eagle 3.x versions (there are apparently 3.0 and 3.5 versions made) that can be converted to the Eagle 4.x+ format (LBR combined library file)

Questions are:
1. Does anyone have an early version of Eagle (3.x) available to convert these LIB to LBR so then I can load/convert into later Eagle and then Kicad?

2. Is there another method to convert these across to maintain the schematic integrity before I remove/update the Xilinx 9536 to 9536XL with the TQFP footprint? Thanks!

[Bryce]

Hi,
     you can download Eagle 3.0 Trial version (Released 2023) here: https://www.filehorse.com/download-eagle/72076/
Or do you need the reeeaally old Pre-Autodesk Eagle 3.0 ?

Bryce.

[darkhalf]

Or do you need the reeeaally old Pre-Autodesk Eagle 3.0 ?

Thanks for that. I'm not so sure now...

ChatGPT has been hallucinating bad and incorrectly assumed that LIB files were used by early versions of Eagle. I called on its BS after locating a Eagle 3.55 manual which discussed only the LBR (XML format)

So I went through the SCRipt file generated from the V and LIB files found the symbols it references

C050-025X075@rcl
E2,5-5@rcl
DO35-10@diode
DIL28@ic-package
2X04@pinhead
PAK100/2500-50@con-3m
PLCC-S44-SOCKET@ic-package
SD4-08@switch-dil
SIL9@resistor-sil

So now I reference these which I've added a 'USE' for in the SCR file:

# Libraries
USE rcl ;
USE pinhead ;
USE switch-dil ;
USE resistor-sil ;
USE ic-package ;
USE diode ;

USE 50WEDGE ;

With this project the provided BRD files and 50WEDGE XML files were for Eagle 6.4. So I'm back to Eagle 6.6 now trying to run this SCP file.

I'm still getting 'Device not found' error and have now RTFM and found the scripts are only to build the BRD file, so cannot get a schematic from these. Kicad needs a BRD and SCH file to import, so now I'm trying nl2sch to convert netlist to schematic to get something loaded in
GitHub - tpecar/nl2sch: Netlist to KiCad schematic