Hi, as shown in the picture I tried to place the trace on the pad but it says not connected, I am new to Kicad and I cannot figure out why, any help?
Thanks!
Hi Logan_Zahng,
welcome at the KiCad forum.
I do not understand, please elaborate.
For some (unknown / weird / whatever) reason KiCad decided to use the name “track” instead of the more commonly used name “trace” for copper lines between pads.
Trace, Track, Trail, and a bunch of other words from the thesaurus are all to similar to make much distinction for me though.
Which is the “problematic” track? “MCS_CS” is connected., and the others do not have a track, only the pad of the Footrpint.
I did notice you are using KiCad V4.0.7, which is getting a bit old nowaday’s.
You may consider updating to KiCad V5. It’s free 
KiCad prevents you from making tracks between pads of different nets, but this is by design and very good.
Sometimes there are problems with clearance if you try to connect a track that is too thick to fit between the other pads of an IC, but that does not seem to be the case here.
Hi, thanks for replying, yes I am talking about MRF_CS,
at the bottom of the picture it says unconnected:
so I am not completely sure whether it is connected or not
This can happen when the track segment does not overlap the centre of the pad
The surest way of solid connections is to have the end of a track match the attachment point of a pad (which is usually, but not always the centre of the pad).
Pcbnew draws thin white lines on places where it thinks connections should be made and these lines are called “Rats nest” and are a usefull guide while laying tracks.
Your MRF_CS looks solidly connected to the pad, but it runs off screen. It may be that the other side of the track is not connected yet, or that MRF_CS is not connected to all pads of the net yet.
With 3694 Track Segments and 1037 Pads this is also not a very small board.
The status bar says you have 100 Unconnected (pads / tracks / netlist nodes ?)
Just keep on laying tracks in a way that makes sense to you wherever you see the white Ratsnest lines. The Status bar is also just a guideline of the status of your board. Once you are almost finished you should use:
Pcbnew / Inspect / Design Rules Checker
for DRC, and keep on tinkering with the board untill all errors are resolved.
Once DRC does not report errors anymore you can be pretty sure that all the copper connectons are made according to the current netlist loaded in Pcbnew.
- This does not guarantee the netlist in Pcbnew is the same as in Eeschema.
- This does not guarantee that you have made a proper schematic.
Note that davidsrsb wrote “can” and not “will”.
I did a little test and moved a THT connector by 0.3mm.
The square pad is near a trace end, but the pad in the middle is not being recognized anymore as connected. When the misalignment is only 0.1mm though it is being recognized as being connected in both the status bar, absense of Ratsnest and the DRC checker, at least in KiCad V5.1, which I am using.
The controls on the left side,“show pads in outline mode” and “show tracks in outline mode” make it much easier to see what is going on
Here another screenshot with a misalignment of the connector of 0.8mm and with the pads drawn in “outline” mode, which does not paint black holes in the center.
The pad on the left is still being recognized as connected.
The rule probably is that KiCad (V5.1) always recognises the connection if the endpoint of a track is in the pad area. I’m even quite surprised that the right pad is still being recognized with an mis-alignment of 0.1mm and no end point of a track in the pad area.
Edit:
I did do a full DRC check, and as Rene also mentioned, when DRC is happy it’s OK.
The number of unconnected in the status line is not really calculated from something rigorous. That counter sometimes misses a connection that has been made. (It is only there to give you a rough idea how much work is left to do.)
For a reliable check run DRC. That tool has a list unconnected button. It also recalculates the connectivity of your board. If DRC does not complain about the connection in question then you are good to go.
The track to pad connection checking has been improved since 4.0.7
It used to be too fussy
I like the new way.
Part of the reason I experimented a bit and made the long post and screenshots was because I was experimenting myself.
I’m still used to the “old ways”, and If I rember well Track ends and pad centres had to align perfectly for DRC to recognize it. This is much better.
Solved, thanks a lot for all your help!
How was it solved. It helps others if you explain what was wrong
I just zoomed out and in again and it shows it is connected again, Probably when I was placing it on the pad it did not refresh
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