I’m trying to import a DXF of a component footprint. In this case, I’m just trying to test out kicad, I realise that I could just draw this by hand.
It imports fine in the footprint editor, but when I select an object and right click->Create pad from selected shapes, I get the following error:
“Cannot convert items to a custom-shaped pad: unable to determine the anchor point position. Consider adding a small anchor pad to the selection and try again.”
This DXF works perfectly in diptrace, so I’m not sure what I am doing wrong here. Could someone please point me in the right direction?
Soon someone would point yiou to StepUp anyways, so I thought I could as well tell you to do a forum search for “stepup”.
As for the custom-shaped pads - add a normal SMD pad, circle or rectangle, so that it overlaps the polygonal custom-shaped pad or is inside it. Then select them both and try again creating a custom pad.
Thanks. I’ve searched for stepup but I’m not sure how it is relevant? I’m not trying to export my PCB as a 3D model?
As for creating another pad and selecting them both, it does create a pad without an error, but it isn’t very useful because it just does a merge of the pad and the drawing data, creating a strange shape and not filling in any open space.
So you have lines which have some width (like traces or silk screen text characters) and they form a polygon.
KiCad lacks the ability to convert this kind of set of lines to a “real” polygon. With KiCad you can draw a polygonal area which is what you would need, if I understood you correctly. The original DXF should have polygonal area. Unfortunately I now next to nothing about drawing DXF. The StepUp plugin for FreeCAD may be able to help with that. Actually I don’t know how to use it, although I would like to know how to design pure 2D footprints with that.
What this error is telling you is that your selection doesn’t have an object that could clearly be a pad. Custom pads always have an “anchor” pad that is either a circle or rectangle. You can add a small circular pad, select it with your imported shapes and convert to custom pad again. That should work.
Looks great! I’m almost there! I just have a few questions:
How do I create the text layer? (see pic)
In addition, it seems to not want to import my pads correctly into kicad, the pad on the bottom left isn’t working properly. Am I doing something wrong here?
I tried to view that PDF from the menu, but it doesn’t do anything when I click it (it says “opening generating a KiCAD footprint and model from 3D Step Data.pdf” in orange text in the bottom status bar, but nothing happens). Cheat sheet and kicad-3d-to-mcad work fine.
I’m running the latest freeCAD release as downloaded today:
OS: Mac OS X
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.17.13519 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: (HEAD detached at 1a8b868)
Hash: 1a8b868018f45ea486c0023fdbfeb06febc1fb89
Python version: 2.7.14
Qt version: 5.10.1
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.2.0
Locale: English/Australia (en_AU)
The files /Users/jeremy/Library/Preferences/FreeCAD/Mod/kicadStepUpMod/demo/Generating, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/a, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/KiCAD, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/footprint, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/and, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/Model, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/from, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/3D, /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/Step, and /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/MacOS/Data.pdf do not exist.
Looks good. It seems I can’t repeat the issue with the missing pad, it seems to be working fine now… I’m not sure what was going on there. Thanks again for all your help, this works perfectly and does exactly what I need. This might have been the last thing stopping me from moving over to kicad.
I drew it myself, took it from a production design in diptrace. I really hate drawing footprints in PCB software (Altium, diptrace, etc), I feel like parametric cad is always the way to go. Hopefully now I can just draw the footprint, align the step model and export all inside freeCAD!
But with custom pads it seems to me it is not possible to obtain a filled pad, unless using a closed poly-line, isn’t it?
Moreover this kind of pads are ‘sort of dangerous’ because DRC does not handle it.
@maui could you please explain in one/two (simple) sentences to total ignorance (means me) the main things behind your “That’s”.
Till now I used only Protel do design PCBs. I am doing my first experiments with KiCad. I don’t understand why you need to use freeCAD and I’d like to understand that.
I don’t understand why @jer used ‘parametrc cad’ in his sentence. Do the parametric cad is something other then cad? Why it is always the way to go (you certainly agree here with him)?