How to import Altium Designer PCB board in KiCad?

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Easy way to import Altium Designer printed circuit board into free KiCad PCB editor.

Download KiCad night version

Download and install KiCad's NIGHT (development) version.

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Board converting

1) Open PCB Editor (NOT KiCad).

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2) Press Open -> Import -> Non-KiCad Board File…

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3) Find and open your Alitum Designer's .PcbDoc file:

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4) Wait for conversion (it will be created folder with 3d models).

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5) Now you can see imported board.

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Comparasion

Compare it with original, it's very good, that 3D models also imported.

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Top and bottom layers comparison (without zones refill).

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Possible problems

Offsetted models

This is rare occurs and easily fixes in the 3D Settings of the footprint, if it happens.

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Offsetted holes

This is a very big probelm of this board, it's necessary for manual delete and move many vias using design rule cheking (DRC).

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Lost teardrops

Sad, but not scary, cause you can just remove all teardrops before, and add them after importing using KiCad extension.

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Conclusions

So, if your really need to convertr Altium PCB to KiCad PCB you can dp it easily with built-in import instrument, it's works good, but not ideally.

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