the function generate_pcb() can't generate PCB file

[wofy-92]

Describe the bug
Hi devbisme, When I running the function generate_pcb(), I get a WARNING:
WARNING: kinet2pcb module is missing. Can't generate a KiCad PCB without it.
but I have installed kinet2pcb

** The test code in the JupyterLab**

from skidl import *

esp32 = Part('RF_Module','ESP32-WROOM-32', footprint='RF_Module:ESP32-WROOM-32')
generate_pcb()

** output message**
WARNING: kinet2pcb module is missing. Can't generate a KiCad PCB without it. @ [D:\Python310\Lib\site-packages\IPython\core\interactiveshell.py:3433=>C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\ipykernel_29400\1868553726.py:4] INFO: 1 warnings found while creating PCB. INFO: 0 errors found while creating PCB.

Screenshots

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• Windows11
• Python3.10.0
• SKiDL1.2.1
• kinet2pcb1.1.0

[tapegoji]

did you fix this?

[roboPanda69]

Hi @devbisme if this problem is not taken, could I solve this ?

[devbisme]

I'm not seeing this error when running the tests on linux. You can try it on Windows and see if the error occurs there. If so, then go ahead and attempt a fix. Please use the version1 branch to make your fix. I added a test for generate_pcb() to test_generate.py, so make sure to fetch your branch to get that change.

If you don't see any errors, then I can close this issue.

[roboPanda69]

Hi Dave, the problem was majorly for Windows user. We have to include the pcbnew module in our Python library search path in the code of kinet2pcb.py.

I am writing instructions on how one could change the same for beginners using the code for the first time -

1. Open kinet2pcb.py file (inside kinet2pcb folder), in line 15 we have sys.path.append('/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages') , here we have to change this path so that it could locate pcbnew.py file.
2. For KiCAD 8.0 the default path is "C:/Program Files/KiCad/8.0/bin/Lib/site-packages", so in the code we have to change line 15 of kicad.py to sys.path.append("C:\\Program Files\\KiCad\\8.0\\bin\\Lib\\site-packages")
3. After this some might face an error for ImportError: DLL load failed while importing _pcbnew: The specified module could not be found.
4. To solve the above problem we have to Copy _pcbnew.pyd from the sites-packages folder to the KiCad/bin folder. [ For reference - https://forum.kicad.info/t/cannot-import-pcbnew-when-running-kicad-bin-python-exe-on-the-command-line/14519/15?u=prashun_pandey ]
5. We have to add sys.path.append("C:\\Program Files\\KiCad\\8.0\\bin\\") at line 14. And then our program would work perfectly.

Here is how code looked before -

from past.builtins import basestring
import argparse
import logging
import os
import os.path
import re
import shutil
import sys

import kinparse

sys.path.append('/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages')
import pcbnew
import hierplace

For Windows user they have to change as -

from past.builtins import basestring
import argparse
import logging
import os
import os.path
import re
import shutil
import sys
import platform

import kinparse

sys.path.append("C:\\Program Files\\KiCad\\8.0\\bin\\")
sys.path.append("C:\\Program Files\\KiCad\\8.0\\bin\\Lib\\site-packages")

import pcbnew
import hierplace

[devbisme]

Thanks for looking at this, @roboPanda69. It appears that the changes need to be made to the kinet2pcb utility, so I'll do that over there. Then I'll come back and close this issue.