OK makes sense, thanks
Just insert a tht “resistor” of 0R.
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I suppose that you must have missed hotkey ‘v’ when reading:
Ah quite right, i missed that one. Actually I did “read” some of the tutorial. But Im an awfully slow reader, so texts that “contain everything” I skip large parts. Prefer condensed, enough and just enough text, like refmans. I think I actually stumbled over a ref to a refman, so I think there is one… will check again
Thanks again.
I think the best advise I read here is to route as a double sided board and delete one side.
However the vias now have to serve as pads for jumper wires and so must be with a large enough hole and a large enough annular ring.
Will the persons here saying this is easy to do provide some example projects so that we can follow your " best practices" please.
How are the defaults for a board set so as to minimize fighting the user interface on the PCB editor?
You could either pre-define large vias, or just go back and select them after the routing is done, and hit ‘E’ and make the pad size and hole size larger. If you do that, make sure they don’t interfere with existing traces.
That is just horrible advise.
Yes, only mentioning that would be much better.
Apparently the concept is a bit difficult to grasp. For people experienced with KiCad, (or any other PCB suite that uses net classes) the way of doing it would be quite straight forward and logical. But for beginners (and especially when unfamiliar with net classes) It may be a bit like dreaming in the dark with a blindfold on.
I don’t have a complete “example project” for this (there are plenty of beginner tutorials). The method to follow is like this:
- Create a project, draw the schematic, assign footprints, the normal project startup.
- Then the net classes part. A “net class” is a set of rules for things like track width, clearance and via (hole and copper) dimensions. These live only on the PCB, and you can set these in: PCB Editor / File / Board Setup / Design Rules / Net Classes.
- The net classes themselves (but not PCB parameters) can also be created in: Schematic Editor / File / Schematic Setup / Project / Net Classes.
- In the schematic editor, you can change things like custom wire thickness and colors (moderately useful), but it’s also the place where the connection to nets and net classes is created.
- Remember that a net class on it’s own is just a set of rules. If nets don’t use them, then they’re useless.
- For your first dabble with net classes. Just change the properties of the Default Netclass (In the PCB Editor, see step 2). If you do nothing else, then all nets use these default netclass settings.
Overall. The use of net classes is a quite important concept in PCB design, and it greatly eases the usage of different settings (for example digital signals with thin tracks and “power routing” with big fat tracks). Net classes are such an integral and important concept that you should learn how to use them for your second (or maybe third) (dummy) project, but not later.
When learning or trying out new concepts, I advise to do this in a small dummy project, with about he size of 20 to 50 pins / pads. (An NE555 blinker is around the minimum) This is complex enough to be able to see some advantages of the methods, while still simple enough to not waste time on repetitive tasks, as may happen in real and important projects.
It’s also better (from a learning point of view) to repeat things and go though the whole process a few times in quick succession. If you only use concepts in real projects, then you are likely to have forgotten how to set up things by the time you need it for your second project.
You can of course also combine these methods. Once experienced in KiCad, taking a project of an NE555 blinker can be done in half an hour to an hour. You can repeat such a project a few times over the course of a week, just to let the methodology sink deeper into your memory. The rest of the time can then still be used on “real projects”.
This advice is no longer valid because of: