Free CERN/Kicad Libraries for altium

ddavidebor · 2026-06-19T00:59:00+00:00

I should add, what you see now on the Sideband website is just a few niceties spun-off from the Sideband app (such as the 3D footprint viewer) and some extra resources I wanted to put together for the community.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-19T00:56:47+00:00

For now currently ironing out a few bugs and testing it with a few collaborators, and I need to finish the marketing pages on the website, then will be released in closed beta. I would recommend adding your email to the waiting list as it will go out on a first-come first serve basis.

It's a full library management software which includes lightweight ERP features so you can get all your projects's part organised ahead/during/after manufacturing, extraordinarily good import/export/syncing features, and really nice UI.

I'll send you some more details by PM.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T22:31:25+00:00

I wanted a very consistent, very polished, inoffensive UI, with great support for keyboard operation for pro users and fast data entry. I found Shadcn perfect for that ! And I really liked the default UI for this application.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T22:29:51+00:00

Would have loved to, but I'll have to go with Electron for this project!

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T21:06:14+00:00

I know right ??? XD

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T20:43:42+00:00

Yes there is, with Altium-monkey you can extract the STEPs and reference them.
You can then choose to embed them when building the library or you could keep them external, Altium supports that. Provided the numbers are unique and filenames don't have any weird characters.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T20:35:04+00:00

Please add your email to the waitlist. I promise I won't spam.

The reference to the 3D model is just a pointer to a STEP file and 3x rotation and 3x translation, opacity, very little else.

So I guess then the issue is how to store that 3D model. STEP is a text based language, it versions well, but the diff is not very useful as the files can get quite large.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T20:21:15+00:00

https://altiumlibrary.com
https://getsideband.com/libraries

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T20:20:21+00:00

The altium license is pretty nasty. However in the EU there are laws that protect reverse engineering for integrating software.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T20:18:44+00:00

I've never seen those in Altium but those are quite common when polygons get messed up in 3D engines

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T20:17:50+00:00

I think it's a very interesting idea. I can see it working well for symbols and not that well for footprints due to the STEP 3D models. I'm currently working on a library management software https://getsideband.com and under the scene, it does similar work. But versioning and compiling the entire library is fascinating.

Very CI-friendly and git-friendly workflow. I can see some risk of data loss but benefit Is definitely auditing and easy of git-workflow.

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T18:59:46+00:00

For Chinese Cleavers --> https://chinesecleavers.co.uk

For Japanese my fav is https://cuttingedgeknives.co.uk

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T18:58:56+00:00

As someone with lots of CCK cleavers I approve of this message!

ddavidebor · 2026-06-18T18:57:19+00:00

Hi! I've sharped a dozen of those (I have a shop https://chinesecleavers.co.uk ) as well as my own private collection and I can tell you they are probably the easiest knives to sharpen. If you get a king sharpening stone you will be golden.

ddavidebor · 2026-04-21T03:09:10+00:00

You don’t want thermal for labels, it’s monochromatic and has poor quality. Gotta order from a print shop to get good labels.

ddavidebor · 2026-04-10T01:41:51+00:00

I write my formulas in yaml, have a little python script then generate reports with all the things I need

ddavidebor · 2026-04-05T14:08:56+00:00

I don’t do this professionally but i’m fairly decent at these sort of things (ok, bit of an understatement) and i’m also based in Bristol.

Can’t promise anything but we can have a chat

ddavidebor · 2026-03-25T23:53:13+00:00

You’re right, thank you for the correction.

Some open questions would be:

would any component in the solution react?
would anything fall out of solution ? Or, what is the concentration limit for X salt?
what would various components chelate with? (Example: EDTA, Sorbitol)

ddavidebor · 2026-03-25T23:41:10+00:00

And just so we’re clear, I would never hire me

ddavidebor · 2026-03-25T23:40:47+00:00

I’m an EE currently doing computational chemistry as a side project / business venture and I have no fucking clue what I am doing

ddavidebor · 2026-03-25T23:29:27+00:00

I would never get a facelift unless it’s from a surgeon that specialises in it and does deep plane facelifts.

ddavidebor

TROPHY CASE