Hello smart people - I’m having a problem getting zones to fill. I draw the zone with CTRL-Shift-Z, assign the GND net to it, set it for one or more layers, hit B, the process looks like it is working, but in a 3" x 14" area I get 9.7534 sq mm of fill (which I can’t find). “Show Filled Areas of Zones” is selected, and the layers I’m working on are visible. There are many pads (including actual THT pads (not just vias) of the same net in the fill area. I’ve tried turning off remove islands, I’ve upgraded from 7.0.8 to the current stable release of 7.0.9. I’ve changed clearances and priorities, but haven’t found my problem yet.
I’m sure i did something to break the fill process, but haven’t been able to figure out what. A screen shot of my settings should be attached, as well as a screen shot showing part of the outline of this zones. I can’t really upload the project publicly as it’s a work project…
At first glance I could not see a problem. If possible upload the kicad project (from kicad manager–>File–>archive project). This allows us to search more deeply in the board.
CTRL-B removes it and B puts it right back, exactly the same. I also deleted the fill zone and it went away, so I believe it IS the same fill zone. No fill seems to occur on the other two layers selected for the fill - not even that little island.
I thought for sure I would find it if I deleted most everything from the board, but… no help. I dragged the shape of the zone back to what was left of the components and the amount of fill changed, but it’s still less than 1 sq mm. Here’s the archive - Mike edp_part.zip (213.5 KB)
Your board outline is just one segment. Delete it from the group and move the big rectangle on the F.Fab layer to Edge.Cuts.
Why is this segment and a rectangle in a group even?
The grouping is a leftover from before I started reading the Kicad docs. RTFM… Hand slaps forehead…
Thank YOU! I think having the edgecuts on the fab layer was a brain-cell leftover from another EDA program.
I don’t understand why that broke a fill zone, but it seems to have been the culprit.
The small copper piece is called an “island” in KiCad, and normally it wouldn’t be there, but this zone in particular is set to “Remove islands: Never”
When the board outline is missing, the “main part” of the zone (in other words, the part up to the zone border) will all be removed/unfilled, but any internal islands are controlled by this setting.
I’d expect other islands - for example between +3.3V track and track from J9 pad 6 (the other over J9 pad 1). What happened with them? For me it is still surprising that only that one island left.
