Can someone explain the correct procedure to save a created schematic symbol in version 5.1? I have successfully created a new schematic symbol, but when I try to save it I get a message that says I don’t have permission to save. Using win7 os.
You can not save to system library tables. Create your own libs for your personal symbols (and footprints)
These FAQ articles might be useful:
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Thanks for reply. I was able to create the new symbol and complete the schematic and assign footprints to all the symbols, however when I imported the netlist into the pcb program the ratsnest wires are missing from the new IC that I created.
A screenshot of both the schematic and the pcb would help us here.
Ah. You have your pins on your IC backwards. If you look very carefully in your schematic you can see there are little empty red circles where your pins meet the IC body, and little empty green squares where your wires meet your pins. The empty red circles are an indicator in EESchema of an unconnected pin. The little empty green squares are an indicator in EESchema of an unconnected wire.
When you place pins in the symbol editor, the handle is the connection point. This makes it hard to place the pin ends off grid, even with non-grid interval lengths of the pins (sometimes useful for drawing graphical symbols of discreet parts).
I’d also suggest using pin names in your IC’s symbol so 3 months down the line when you pick this schematic up, you have a reminder of what each pin functions are. If you also have pin names on and configured to inside the component (I forget the exact language for the setting off the top of my head), it would also be obvious of the correct pin orientation for correctly building the symbol.
I see a couple other items of concern for your schematic, namely how are you feeding the AC signal to your circuit on the PCB, and how are you getting the two outputs out of your circuit on the PCB? Those symbols you used don’t normally have footprints. Same question about ground.
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Thanks. I fixed the pins and now it works. I had the pin names invisible to keep the clutter down, but all I really needed to do was make the rectangle a little bigger so the text from pins wasn’t interfering with each other. The power is supplied from an off board transformer and yes I do need pads for both power input and outputs. Don’t see many choices for AC power port choices. Any ideas for what I can use for power symbols that have pads? and how should I treat the grounds?
You most likely will need to place connectors. This is after all the way to interface between a pcb and the outside world. This is however the end of the region of interest for kicad. It really couldn’t care less what you then connect to these connectors.
If you want to include system level components (like your offboard power supply) then you would need to use a bit of trickery.
I understand that this is how we interface with the outside world, but doesn’t Kicad need to know that the connectors are for power and ground so the DRC/netlist can keep track of these connections ? If I come into the board from a connector and connect it to a ground symbol, will it automatically know to connect all the grounds together? Or is there a better way?
Kicad was getting slow to unresponsive so I saved all my files and rebooted machine. After rebooting, the graphic in the Kicad icon on the desktop had changed and when I clicked on it I got an error message that said it couldn’t find the executable. The executable for main Kicad app and eescema app were missing as well as my schematic file was corrupt. Don’t know if the screen capture app caused this or Kicad itself. The pcb file and the custom symbol file I had created did survive. I had to reinstall Kicad and started recreating the schematic. This time I added single pin connectors for power in. Every time I try to add a footprint to the connector I get an error window and it crashes:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: kicad.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 00000000
Fault Module Name: _pcbnew.kiface
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0000000000899b59
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 23c9
Additional Information 2: 23c9c7e5c6a4729e7f32f5be8e1ce5f5
Additional Information 3: 2f3b
Additional Information 4: 2f3b65536711c772a04479a68bc85
Power ports are nothing else than fancy labels. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/392911/kicad-5-what-is-the-significance-of-the-various-gnd-symbols/392977#392977
To tell kicad that a connector is the place where you get power (for ERC) you just need to have a power output pin on that net somewhere. So either a specialized connector symbol or a power flag. ErrType(3): Pin connected to some others pins but no pin to drive it
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