What’s the recommended way to connect a trace to PCB-only “footprints” without any soldered on parts like an PCB-antenna or a capacitive touch button?
I tried adding a pad but with solder mask over it. It is correctly drawn as a connection by the ratsnest, but once I try routing it doesn’t let me connect a trace to it.
I must miss something obvious, please point me to it.
Thank you!
You’re already halfway.
Adding a pad is the right way to create an attachment point for your net. The problem you’re encountering very likely is that your pad is on top of some copper graphical items, and KiCad tries to stear away from that.
(A screenshot would be helpfull here).
There are two ways to approach this.
One way is to combine both the graphics and the pad into a single entity and make a “complex pad” out of it. To do this, select both your graphics and the pad then right click and select “Create pad from Selected Shapes” from the popup menu.
The other way is to sort of suppress the DRC that prevents you from connecting to the track, and this is done by adding net tie to the keyword section of the footprint. This is a hackish way that was made for the current implementation of net ties. You can study the existing default libraries with net ties for the details. It’s also mentioned in:
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The net tie trick works, but then I have to be careful not to accidentally route through the part, since it isn’t avoiding to connect it any more for any trace I lay out, right?
I can’t find the “Create pad from Selected Shapes” in the context menu. I’m in the footprint editor.
You didn’t tell you are using 5.99.
Select one pad -> context menu -> Edit Pad as Graphic Shapes
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Just add it to the schematic - you can add an antenna symbol or a test point there. As well as documenting your design better it is the simplest way to ensure DRC compliance. It also helps to avoid problems if you update the pcb from the layout when you can easily mess up pcb only features. You can add mounting holes etc to the schematic too - easier to ensure they are correctly grounded that way.
Obviously I first made a symbol for it and placed it in the schematic, how else would the ratsnest connect to it?
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