I can see some sort of logic there but I still don’t see the need. As I have added parts to the net they now work. Even with parts added to the net which is mandatory (not necessarily by design) due to the way I am designing this in tandem with the metal work (KiCad on one screen 3D CAD on the other) not all parts or features are being immediately added to the design as it is very much about the interplay between the PCB and case that I am having machined out of a piece of billet. So I may also need to try things out before the final design or may change components, but in the mean time my zones could stop working.
I see that traces also go empty if they have no net. Time ago I designed a PCB that was a touch pad so meshed fingers of traces from 2 sides. No schematic required, came out fine, KiCad however will not permit such a design that I had good reasons to make and came out perfectly - but “not allowed” in KiCad.
Version 6 will have better support for schematicless designs, even though KiCad is really meant for full workflow. But for the more complicated design KiCad is designed around the same concepts as other EDA packages: components, symbols, footprints, nets, design rules. That’s why the logic is pretty clear for your use case:
It has a connection point for an external object
It is connected to other components (filter capacitors, as you told)
It needs a filled zone
So it’s clearly a component and a net, represented by symbol and footprint and wires and tracks and zones, even though the chassis is a different kind of a component. But conceptually there’s no difference between the chassis/board contact and any other connector. There’s no reason why KiCad should handle them differently. Even the MCAD/ECAD collaboration is similar: it’s a contact point, i.e. a connector, and may need to be changed or moved when the design goes on. You can even add a 3D model of your chassis to the footprint, and in v6 you will be able to set opacity for it so you can nicely see a semi-transparent chassis around your board.
You can also just draw in KiCad what’s in your reality.
You seem to want to have a zone connected to “Chassis” in some way, so connect it to chassis.
How do you want to connect it?
It could by by clamping through a hole -> Use a mouninghole with pad.
Woven gasket: Use SMT pads with exposed copper.
Soldering around the edges: Again SMT pads where you want solder.
For the zone on the other side:
As soon as you’ve put in your first via, KiCad knows the copper is connected and after a b it will also pour the zone for the other side.
Nope, if I go between two zones with no net the via is isolated. I have to actually attach a footprint pad to it. To create a net I have to add components. Yes there will be mount holes but that is yet to go into the design.
Basically it has to have a net or it’s a non thing, to have a net it has to have a component or it’s not a net. I work extensively with 3D CAD so any time i want to trial fit I just export to step and pull the PCB model into the 3D CAD. I know that there are various solutions to try and bring 3D into electrical CAD but ultimately they are two environments and to do full design you will need the two complete CAD environments. Documentation of the final product is driven by the 3D CAD so I would not be bringing mechanical 3D parts in that on export would exist already in the 3D CAD design. But that is just the workflow of the company I work for as they are primarily mechanical (we are having rows about why can’t I document a PCB just like any old punched and folded sheet metal bracket ).
This is from the perspective that things that are not nets do not exist. This works logically from a connections point of view but can cause the issues I have had where I am designing a physical item.
KiCad is designed to work well for designing PCB’s consisting of an Outline, Footprints, Tracks, Zones etc. And it does this job very well for lots of people. This forum alone has over 5000 members.
KiCad also has limitations.
It’s up to you whether you find these limitations acceptable or not.
The software don’t care whether you like it or not. It’s just a bunch of bits on some computer, and the easiest way to get along with it is to adapt to the way it works. Drawing the mounting holes with pads and netnames (or pads for gaskets or solder strips) is not even a workaround. It’s just normal use of KiCad.
For the majority of KiCad users unconnected copper is bad. I have been saved by this a few times, as, for examples tracks got bumped a bit from use of the interactive router, it created large gaps in GND planes which pull your attention to it to fix them. To me this is a very useful info.
If you can cooperate with the others who have lifted KiCad from a very buggy and limited state to what it is now: An almost professional program, wit ever smaller gaps to fill in to get to the last mile of “Fully complete”, then “they” will probably also accept your patches, (if they’re applicable to a substantial user base)
The Chassis track is green, which means it’s on the “Bottom” of the PCB, while the pads of C42 are red and on the “Top” of the PCB (if you use default colors).
Or are you referring to one of the rats nest lines that goes off screen?
my top traces are green, habbit from other programs i have used, i am connecting together pads of the same net on the layer and they don’t fill (but do show on the 3D render). I’ll go the full hog and try restarting my computer just in case of a graphics glitch.
describe the unwanted behaviour you are experiencing.
I’ll have another guess:
If it is that you see the green track in “outline mode”, it’s just another way of viewing at your PCB, and it’s simply a setting with the icons on the left side of the screen. Tracks, pads, vias and zones can either be shown filled or in outline mode.
Start clicking a bit on these icons, and read their tooltips.
Those settings relate to the zones, not the tracks that I am aware of, as you can see in the screen shot the copper zones are filled so should the tracks be if your theory is correct.
This is a long thread so I didn’t notice if someone mentioned this already, but in V6 you can make a zone leave the unconnected copper “islands” instead of removing them. Yes, there are sometimes negative consequences to doing this. Yes, there are valid reasons for doing this anyway.
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