Hallo,
I wanted to change a footprint. I realized that x and y are changed. Normally x is horizontal and y is vertical.
Why is this changed again in KICAD and differently to PCB new?
Best regards
Your orientation is set to 90, so obviously that affects “X” and “Y”.
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But this only affects the x/y orientation of the pad size? Not in global orientation?
Just set the orientation to zero…
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The pad has “internal” original orientation and coordinate system in the footprint. The whole footprint may be rotated in the board, but it doesn’t affect the internal properties of the footprint.
What is your problem exactly? Why is this a problem?
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The problem was that I didnt understood in the beginning why coordinates were changed and coordinates already caused some trouble in my KICAD life. So I wanted to understand excatly what happens if i change orientation of a pad. Does it affect the whole footprint and so on…
Yes, i did exactly this way. I only used footprints until now which were rectangular to coordinates. I think this was the reason i had never noticed the orientation field berfore.
Or worded a bit differently:
Most graphical tools work with multiple coordinate systems that live within each other.
For kicad you have the global pcb coordinate system. If you place a footprint then you really place a new coordinate system for every footprint. The position and rotation numbers of the footprint properties dialog show the position of the footprints coordinate system relative to the global one.
In the footprint editor you work mainly with that footprint coordinate system. Any coordinate you see is relative to the footprints coordinates (so for example the end points of a line)
A pad is a bit special as it again has its own coordinate system. The position and rotation parameters of the pad determine how that coordinate system is placed within the footprints coordinate system. All other parameters of the pad use the pads local coordinate system. This includes the size parameters but also the coordinates of primitives for complex pads.
Therefore, if you rotate or move a pad within the footprint editor (hotkey r or any other tool that rotates stuff) then you will really only interact with the pads coordinate system similar to how you only interact with the footprints coordinate system when interacting with a footprint placed on the board.
So my guess is that @Fabi rotated the whole footprint within the footprint editor which implicitly rotated the pads resulting in the pads local coordinate system to be rotated (and displaced as the rotation center was most likely not the center of the pads but the center of the footprint)
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