The Shenzhen OPL Needs YOU! Help make the OPL Great Again by Helping Update the Eagle and KiCad Libraries

We need your help! The new Shenzhen Open Parts Library (SZOPL) released for the Seeed Fusion PCBA service last month enlarges the PCBA OPL catalog to over 10,000 components for your choosing. But you may have noticed one major thing is missing compared to the original Seeed OPL. Where’s the actual component library?

With over 10,000 components in the OPL and many more to come, it would take us eons to make the footprints and symbols for every single component in multiple pieces of design software, and then ensure that each one was production perfect. It is simply not practical for us to provide this by ourselves.

That’s where we need your help. Footprint drawing (or finding) is essential in the PCB designers toolbox. But it is time-consuming and only needs to be done once. If everyone pulls together to help build-up the library on a real use-by-use basis, then the more people that use the OPL – the better it gets for everyone. Then us folks can focus on expanding the library rather than being bogged down by footprints. To help with the process, we’ve re-organized the libraries and assigned a new team of Seeed’s own layout engineers to manage the GitHub repository.

Our partner HuaQiang, that has enabled the massive expansion, supplies electronics components to millions of users around the world and works directly with factories and international suppliers like DigiKey and Mouser. By integrating our resources, we are able to offer a much greater number of quality parts with standardized datasheets and images conveniently in one place.

So let’s begin with the Seeed OPL Eagle and KiCad libraries and work from there. Every little helps. Found it online or drawn it yourself? Save others the legwork by making a pull-request.

What about footprint errors? It’s impossible to avoid completely, but if, after using a footprint in a confirmed library we find a fatal mismatch, we’ll manufacture the corrected PCB for free.

The introduction of the Shenzhen OPL represents a milestone in the Seeed Fusion PCB Assembly service’s evolution. We hope that this will enable more and more designers around the world to benefit from the Silicon Valley of Hardware’s resources and get faster and cheaper PCBA. By using components in the PCBA OPLs, the production time can be reduced from 20 working days to just 7, not to mention these parts are also guaranteed to be cheaper than imported alternatives. Check out all the details here.

We’ve worked hard to get to this point but this is just one step towards making Open Source Hardware more accessible for everyone. We have many more plans lined up for 2019! Stay tuned and thank you all!

Check out the catalog of over 10,000 components here

Download the Eagle Seeed Fusion OPL Component Library here

Download the KiCad Seeed Fusion OPL Component Library here

Please let us know what you think!

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