Hi, I am following a kicad tutorial called ’ make your first printed circuit board’. I am now in the pcb editor and have drawn my lines. Next step was to add graphic polygon. Can’t see anywhere ‘select edge cuts layer’.
In the vertical toolbar on the right is ‘draw graphic polygon’. Clicking on this comes up with the + icon. With this I put a square around the components. When returning to the starting point and clicking I get a pink square. No sign of the components which according to the tutorial should be in the square.
Can anybody explain this please? I have version 7 of kicad and windows 10.
Have you tried using the Kicad tutorial in Kicad / Help / Getting Started with Kicad?
This genuine Kicad tutorial covers most of the basics without assuming, as so many online tutorials unfortunately do.
Tutorial part 3. Cicuit Board. 5.4 Drawing a Board Outline. shows you how.
I am sure I have the genuine Kicad tutorial. Problem I had with pink display now fixed. I found ‘edge cuts layer’.
Now another query. When I select the footprints of components the dimensions between holes etc are given. I can adjust the size of what is shown in my footprint editor but how do I find the correct size according to the footprints I have already selected. Same with the 3D viewer which does not show correct sizes. There must be a selection somewhere where you get the correct display based on your footprint selections?
In other words how do I get a view of what my final printed circuit board will look like from the editor?
Do you mean “as in the real life size”?
To see how my PCB will look like I use 3D viewer but never was worry about the scale. The bigger - the better - you can see more details. When you have real PCB it works the same. The closer you keep it to your eyes the bigger you see it.
There must be a selection somewhere where you get the correct display based on your footprint selections? In other words how do I get a view of what my final printed circuit board will look like from the editor?
This question looks similar to your last topic “resistor too small”. For pcb-design you usually don’t work with a 1:1-display of the pcb-board. You choose the zoom-factor that suit your needs (depending on viewing habits and and how good you could see). It also depends on the physical size of the monitor - so on every kicad-installation the "correct display " would look different.
(sidenote just as comparison:
take a wordprocessor and write a letter with A4-page size. View this letter with 100% zoom-setting on two different monitors - you will get different sizes on the display. Working on the monitor is independent from the physical size. Unless you specially calibrate your zoom-settings with the physical dimensions of the display.)
Yes. Real life size is what would be very good. I think anybody would want that to see what his or hers final board is going to look like. Also that will confirm that the component dimensions selected have been correctly interpreted by Kicad.
For instance I will be using through hole resistors not smd. The distance between holes was selected as 12mm. Don’t see why this cannot be displayed as such on my monitor for the very simple circuit of battery, resistor and led. Monitor screen size is 34cm x 19cm. Plenty of room for even large, complicated circuits.
Wouldn’t you like to see it on your monitor screen at the real life size of the final printed circuit board. I know I would and I think anyone would like to see that and its not impossible. It would be good in the selections in Kicad to have this; ‘show at real life size’.
Otherwise I guess I can just zoom to get down to real life size.
There are two ways to see real life size.
1/ Print the board full size. Use Outline mode for Tracks and Pads (Lower LHS of screen Icons) to save ink.
2/ Hold a rule against your screen and use zoom 'till something with a known value matches your rule.
@mf_ibfeew explained the problem in detail.
Yes I can use zoom until the measurements on my screen are the same as the dimensions selected by me for say a through hole resistor. Although this will only be possible if the zoom goes in small steps.
Not sure about @Piotr , but I’ve never given it a thought.
If the Edge Cuts are drawn as 100mm X 90mm, well, the board is 100mm X 90mm. If I cannot imagine that, I can draw an outline on a piece of paper.
Real life size is what would be very good. I think anybody would want that to see what his or hers final board is going to look like
Real life size on a monitor is quite the opposite the CAD-systems (either mechanical or electrical cad) are invented for.
Imagine a board with 0201 passive elements (0.6x0.3mm size) and fine pitch tracks (0.07mm track width and clearance). And you would want that in physical dimensions on the monitor? So you are really sharp sighted, I would need a magnifier glass in front of the monitor.
A different issue is if you want to get an additional overview (for instance at the end of the board layout, or to get a feeling for the complete board/system. Than maybe a 1:1-representation between monitor <–> physical size could be useful for some people.
For this case every individual kicad system has to be calibrated between monitor-size <–> display-resolution <–> physical size to calculate the individual zoom-factor for this installation which shows a 1:1-physical representation.
If you really want that, look at the thread Custom scale for a true PCB view
and my answer #8 (step-by-step desription, note: step10 has be proven to not work)
and video at answer #20.
You shoud remember the estimated zoom-factor, so you can use it for every project on the same system.
No.
Since I moved with designing PCBs from checkered paper to PC in late 80s I never even thought about having PCB at screen in 1:1 scale.
I don’t know what for such feature could be useful. Do you expect me to take caliper and measure distances at screen?
Much easier and much more precision is to use for it tools offered by KiCad. Look at status line (X, Y, dx, dy, dist), and at right tool box (Interactively measure…), and selecting right grid also can be useful. But measuring anything at screen… I don’t get that idea.
Subtract at least 1 (me) from ‘anyone’.
I suppose there are more needed features developers work on them.
Subtract 2 from ‘anyone’.
‘given it a thought’ - even I was thinking a week how to say it I would not get an idea to use this wording. I see how poor is my English.
And as the next step imagine 01005 passive elements (0.3x0.15mm). I wonder what is the typical screen pixel size.
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