Creating custom "graphical" pad with multiple connection points

Layout Footprints
1

Hello,
I’m currently designing a keyboard PCB for a calculator. The keyboard is made up of carbon contact points with this rather unique shape:

Pad Shape
Pad Shape931×946 32.3 KB

Thanks to a helpful post on this forum I could currectly assign a connection point to the inner spiral pad of this footprint, however I am having trouble with the outer pad.

I would like to be able to route traces to this pad from any angle/side when editing the PCB. However KiCad’s “Edit Pad as Graphical Shape” function only allows me to specify one connection point for the graphical shape.

How should I go about properly configuring the pad for this?

Thank You for the help,
Kuba.

2

Yes, this is pretty annoying. What works is holding shift while routing: This allows you arbitrary routing without snapping.

3

For fully-flexible routing, Shift is the way.

If you want, you can also add more “dummy” pads to the footprint, each with the same number (here, 2). Each one acts as a routing snap point.

Look at Wuerth SMSI spacers, for example - they have 3 dummy pads for snapping, and the custom pad “centre” is the fourth:

image