Hello,
how do I disable all non-text elements in the silkscreen? I only want the references (the board is quite dense and there is no place for the other stuff). In Eagle there were different layers for all kind of stuff (name, value, other drawings) and in the gerber creation dialog I was free to choose what layers should be combined into into the silkscreen.
How to do that in Kicad?
Best regards
Stefan
You can use PCB Editor / Edit / Edit Text and Graphic Properties. If you then use a Scope of **PCB Graphic Items and use the Filter for a Silkscreen layer, then you can move those things to an unused layer such as User.3 or similar.
I do recommend to make a backup before you start experimenting with this dialog, as you can make quite big (and possibly unintentional) changes. You can also save the PCB just before you do this, and if it goes wrong, then exit the PCB editor without saving.
In Eagle there were different layers for all kind of stuff (name, value, other drawings) and in the gerber creation dialog I was free to choose what layers should be combined into into the silkscreen.
In Kicad there is no distinction between item types. Plotting a gerber-layer plots the complete content of that layer. Only special options (==exceptions) in the gerber-plotting dialog:
- omit the footprint values (mostly important for the F.Fab/B.Fab layers): checkbox “Plot footprint values”
- omit the footprint References (mostly important for the silkscreen layers): checkbox “Plot footprint reference designators”
Following pauls recommendation and moving the wanted/unwanted parts from silkscreen to a different (currently unused) layer would work.
If you have these requirement for most (or all) of your projects it could be reasonable to define your own footprints, with graphics, values and references on different layers. Adding layers together at the gerber-output can be achieved with the “plot on all layers” selection.
Thanks, that dialog worked great. I don’t plan to create my own footprints, but I wonder if there is a reason why they aren’t separated in the standard libraries
Since I remember we didn’t used silkscreen at all. Using Protel 3 we used silk layer to make our documentation files and it was not fit for being used at PCB. We placed value and reference texts inside element rectangles. If you have 3 rows of 0603 elements touching each other then you have no other place for texts and in this way there is no doubt which element a given description refers to.
Since I moved to KiCad I started to use silk layer but I only place element rectangles but I don’t know what for I am doing it (automatic assemble need not silk layer).
If I were hand soldering PCB I would see much more usable the values and not references printed at PCB.
I hear for the first time that someone wants to have texts and not wants to have rectangles. As during gerber generation you can switch references and/or values off so the only unsupported option is as you ask for and, as you see, even such an unusual need can be satisfied by KiCad.
So adding two extra layers could be assumed as making extra, unnecessary mess for lot of users to easy a little a task for one user.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.