Adding a Small Section to a Fill

[Tour50]

I’ve fumbled my way through this so far but have some questions.
I’m adding a small section to a large square fill. Does this have to
be a two step process and if so what is the best practice?

Regards,
Dan

[mf_ibfeew]

I’m not sure what you mean with “two step process”. But maybe the following remarks give you a answer:

• you could draw already the first “big” zone with the dent included. Just click on any corner point.
• you could enhance a existing zone by adding additional corner points:
  • select the zone.
  • zone is displayed with handling-points
  • point the mouse at a position between to existing handling points → RMB-click–>context menu–>Create corner
  • now move the new created corner point to the desired location
• you could create two zones (like in your case) and later combine them into one big zone: select both zones–>RMB click–>context menu–>zones–>Merge zones
• if you want to have both zones separate (like in your picture) Make sure both zones have different zone priority levels

[Tour50]

Very interesting. You’ve given me lots to think about/explore.

Regards,
Dan

[Piotr]

@mf_ibfeew

point the mouse at a position between to existing handling points → RMB-click–>context menu–>Create corner

Don’t have KiCad here to check it but if remember well I just used ‘Ins’ key to add new corners.

[Tour50]

I created one smaller zone right beside the larger one and they appear to be connect.
The 3D viewer also shows them as one piece and passes DRC.

But, as you can see in the second screen snip if I try to merge them I get an error.

Thoughts anyone?

Regards,
Dan

[mf_ibfeew]

Thoughts anyone?

Thousands.

The first thought: if the error-message shows: “zone priorities did not match. Zones were not merged” I personally would match the zone priority in both zones (== set zone priority to the same value in the big and in your small zone) and try the merging command again.
Apparently the merging command has some protection measures to make sure that only comparable zones can be merged.

note: it’s not necessary to merge the big & the small zone at all. The final result in the gerber file will be the same (as you already have checked in the 3D-viewer). Merging can be useful because you then have only one zone to take of (regardind zone parameters).

[Tour50]

After a brief look around I figured out how to check the zone properties and match the priorities.
Still trying to figure a few things out but my primary goal right now is to make sure the two zones are connected electrically. The rest of my efforts are going into getting better with KiCAD.

Regards,
Dan

[Tour50]

Experience is the best teacher? Two zones touching of the same netclass seem to be merged automatically.
An upload to Oshpark seem to confirm this.

Thanks for the input.

Regards,
Dan

[paulvdh]

A small remark:
I would never ever have those zones just touch. I would always have them overlap a bit. There are just too many unknowns for tolerance stackup, and if you have some bad luck you end up with PCB’s with a hairline split between those zones.