I just got word back from my board house that they’d like to see the traces and vias a “bit thicker”.
No problem, I said…
I updated the trace widths and via sizes in the board settings and netclass assignment dialogs. Then, I did “Edit Track&Via Properties”.
Now, as you may expect, I’ve got a bunch of colliding traces and vias.
Normally, when this happens, I can grab one of the offending tracks with D and move the mouse a bit and the autorouter will straighten it out…But, this board now has several traces overlapping each other, and the DRAG feature seems to be confused about how to drag the tracks around.
Is there anything I can do aside from deleting all the tracks and rerouting?
I’ll do it if there’s no other way, but I thought I’d check here first and see if there’s any thing (hacks included) that can jiggle these traces away from each other again…
This is indeed a common / known problem / limitation in KiCad.
Sometimes it helps if you are routing another track and then bump into the tracks that cause the DRC violations, and the other advises here sometimes also work. The Interactive router is also constantly being worked upon, and each KiCad version behaves a bit differently.
The tricks already mentioned can get you a quick result, but they don’t always work. If they don’t work, then instead of deleting all those 5 tracks and redrawing them you can also delete only tracks 2 and 4 and redraw them.
Or, just avoid this situation from the start by agreeing on design rules with the fab before routing takes place. I don’t mean this in a condescending way, because it isn’t obvious to new PCB designers always how important it is to set up design rules first rather than after a design has been completed.
As mentioned you can turn interactive router setting from routing menu to ‘Highlight Collisions’ and then check ‘Allow DRC violations’. This will let you draw as if you had no schematics and netlist but will still give you a highlight when the mouse is over. Which is nice since you do not want to harm what you have done previously. Incidentally this is the method one should try to draw some additions to a PCB without bothering about the schematic. Especially useful when working with RF. Be sure to include your final work in the schematic and turn the interactive router to walk around mode (DRC violations will be checked automatically). A related problem is how to strip a netlist from a PCB. I have not been able to find this item but a walk around is importing a blank netlist file which can be easily produced and pasted into the project folder.
