Create Prototyping area in Kicad 6 Breadboard compatible

[Ritu_Sharma]

Hi All,

Newbie here…

I am struggling for sometime to generate a small prototype area on my first PCB.
I am looking for footprints like the ones shown here

I went through many posts but the footprints they refer does not seem to be present in kicad6. One example is here but could not find the footprint they are referring.

I thought this must be very simple and readily available in Kicad. Am I missing something very obvious ?

Cheers
Ritu

[retiredfeline]

I think most people use KiCad to design specific boards rather than general purpose prototype boards, so you’d have to create your own footprints. It shouldn’t be hard to make your own footprints, it looks to me like there are only two distinct footprints and you just have to repeat as desired. The pitch is also an easy 0.1 inch.

Maybe you could get some footprints from this project, in Eagle though so you’d have to import, and give appropriate credit.

[poco]

I think op is mixing two different things: a) the boards, shown in op can be (are created) with kicad, and b) these boards are not meant to be used in kicad further.

If one wants to add these boards (for extraordinary reason, like this one: How to implement a breadboard in KiCad) rectangular pattern footprints (aka breadboard) can be easily created with footprint generation wizzard, or array tool. There is no reason to add these kind of footprints in kicad library, because there is no reallife use of yhese boards in kicad. Kicad is a tool to create these types of boards, not to prototype on them, like mentioned in a thread linked in this post of mine.

[retiredfeline]

I think what OP wants is a board with a prototyping area, like this one: Generic 8-bit Processors Prototype (G8PP) | Hackaday.io So it’s just a matter of creating the two footprints. Since they won’t be connected to any net, they would be placed at the pcb editing stage.

[jmk]

@retiredfeline

I think what OP wants is a board with a prototyping area

Agree.
The question is now: should the prototype section be an added footprint or part of the original layout of the whole board?

[BlackCoffee]

Two Options:

1. If wanting a Footprint
   • Create new Footprint> Add Pad, Create Array from the Pad

2. If Not wanting Footprint
   • Add Pad, Create Array from the Pad
   (save the project and reuse a copy of it or, make it a reusable Template)

I did Not bother to add Silk/Text/etc… Both are shown below…

Both will Look, Smell and Taste the same but, Option 2 is preferred (by me) because you can easily add traces to/from Pads for desired connections and they’re retained. Thus, you can make a PCB as shown in OP’s first link

It’s more difficult to make Traces in Footprints (without knowledge of how)…

[BlackCoffee]

…following up (for fun)…

You’ll see my posts in the OP links above. They were intended as a starting point to inspire user(s) to do similar.

Below is more Complete…
• Thinner height BreadBoard (BB)
• Pad Array aligned with BB’s Pin Holes

Added a couple of parts to complete the example
(I did not bother to adjust Pin Lengths of the Parts but, doing
that is one-click in the editor…