I have a 4-layer board design. One component has 0.55" through hole circular pads. The minimal pad spacing is .09". I would like 0.065" pads because they are easier to solder. The pads are in staggered rows and I cannot get a run between pads using my desired run width. However, when I am routing the center two layers, should one be able to at least route a run under the edge of the pads? If not, is there a way to make oval pads and have the hole non centered?
In pad properties dialog window, toward the bottom of it, there is an option to “offset shape from hole”.
In the same dialog you can also modify the shape of the pad.
See if you can find a suitable form there.
Creation of padstacks with different pads on different layers may not be supported in 6.0, but perhaps it is possible through manual editing of the file.
6.0 does have an option to have pads only on connected layers (top right in pad properties dialog), so using that you could omit the pad on an inner layer where you don’t need a connection, and thus make space to route a track between holes.
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KiCad V6.0.x does have a partial pad stack implemented.
At the moment this means you can turn off the pads for the internal layers, and only the tube for the through-metalization remains.
If you want to modify your footprint to make the holes oval, it’s best loaded in the footprint editor first. To do this, select your footprint in the PCB Editor and then just press [Ctrl + e]
In the footprint editor it’s easy to first modify one pad, and then copy the properties of that pad to all the others. The modified footprint can be put directly back onto the PCB.
For a more structural approach though, I recommend to export your modified footprint to a project specific library, and then use that library explicitly in the footprint links in the schematic.
That is great. I did not see that offset feature. Thank you very much.
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