AddNet plugin released

[Michele_Santucci]

Hi,

I released my new plugin: AddNet it just allows to create a new net and assign it to an existant pad from within pcbnew (it’s something that I often need to do).
Hope someone find it useful or at least inspiring to create something else.
The repo is located here:

weirdgyn/addnet

Best regards,
Weirdgyn

[qu1ck]

Suggestion: it will help to add some instructions/screenshots or suggested use case to the readme.

It’s not immediately clear to me why adding a net in pcbnew is useful. Do you use it in combination with WireIt plugin to then connect to other things?

[PCB_Wiz]

@Michele_Santucci

I released my new plugin: AddNet it just allows to create a new net and assign it to an existant pad from within pcbnew (it’s something that I often need to do).

That’s nifty.
Did you also see the existing WireIT, that allows Add connection / split / rename ?

WireIt: PCBNEW plugin for adding/cutting/swapping wires in the physical layout

I’ve released WireIt, a PCBNEW plugin that lets you add nets, remove nets, and swap pins on the physical layout. Changes made in the layout can be dumped to a file for backannotation into the schematic. There is a short video demonstrating its use. I’m using WireIt in conjunction with PadPainter to do I/O pin assignments from an FPGA to surrounding peripherals so that the wiring is as crossover-free as I can make it.

@qu1ck

It’s not immediately clear to me why adding a net in pcbnew is useful.

Adding nets or swapping pins, is quite useful to have, for tight layouts, or SCH-free designs.

@qu1ck

Do you use it in combination with WireIt plugin to then connect to other things?

WireIT can already add nets so I think this duplicates a subset of WireIT ?

[Michele_Santucci]

I’ll add some more info on ReadMe. The use-case is mostly bound to my own PCB making process of course. The main cases of use are the following (assuming an intricate schematics as a basis):

• I found a missing connection on a board (often caused by a non correcly designed footprint or symbol);
• I have not a schematics;
• I performed a number of pin net reassignment and/or change of footprint and I found a missing net;

In such cases getting back to EESchema to fix all this can be painful and non error-free (resulting in repeating the process more than once). Having a chance to create a brand new net at apply it can speed up the board routing I was usually doing this by text editing kicad_pcb file by hand.
Of course, for the sake of the project, I fix all the mess at a certain point (usually at the end of routing).

[Michele_Santucci]

Did you also see the existing WireIT, that allows Add connection / split / rename ?

Nope … I’ll give it a try.

[der.ule]

If you could illustrate its usage as @MitjaN does with his/hers at GitHub would be very nice indeed.

MitjaNemec/Kicad_action_plugins

[Michele_Santucci]

I update ReadMe with a short description of when and how use the tool.

[Michele_Santucci]

WireIT can already add nets so I think this duplicates a subset of WireIT ?

yes it does.

[hermit]

I’ve had some issues that has had me away for a couple weeks and I’m just catching up. I can make the first post a ‘wiki’ page so that you can update it whenever needed. In terms of the index, how would you classify this plugin?

Index post for External Plugins section

This post is a permanent placement for finding official threads related to external plugins. These will be wiki’d posts that allow the plugin author to maintain an ongoing dialog about their plugin. These will included, but will not be limited to: New releases Announcement about plugin features Initial announcement of the plugin Symbol Creation uConfig extract pinout from PDF datasheet and create Kicad schematics. imgui generate kicad schematic symbols using a graphical tool BOM KiCo…

[Michele_Santucci]

AddNet allows users to add a net in PCBNEW without need to get back on EESchema.

[Rene_Poschl]

What happens if the user selects to update the pcb from schematic sometime down the road?

[Michele_Santucci]

If user build the same connectivity on EESchema (regardless of the name of the net itself) and export it in a new netlist pcbnew will fix everything without any problem. Of course if the user doesn’t fix its schematics prior importing the netlist the new net will be deleted.