I’m relatively new to KiCad. I’ve been using it for about 6 months and I’ve successfully designed about 5 small double sided PCBs in that time.
I’m now getting a DRC error that I’ve not had before now. I have a standard resistor with one end connected to ground fill that DRC reports as not connected. I’ve read some forum posts on similar topics but I’ve not found exactly this problem.
There are other instances of the same resistor type successfully connected to the ground fill. If I delete the offending resistor from the schematic the problem just moves to some other ground fill connection. When I replace the resistor the problem comes back to the resistor pad. If I change the resistor footprint the problem stays with the resistor. I’ve tried pressing ‘B’ but that makes no difference. I’ve tried adding an explicit track between the offending pad and some other pad connected to ground, this makes no difference DRC still reports it as unconnected. I’ve checked that the fill area is not isolated from a ground connection.
If two things that should be connected are not connected there is no difference if you say if first is not connected to the second or the second to the first.
I suppose you have zones connected to some pads connected to GND so zones are filled, but there is no connection between them.
Thans for the quick reply. I don’t quite understand “I suppose you have zones connected to some pads connected to GND so zones are filled, but there is no connection between them.”
All the other GND pads in the above image do not report a connection problem. If I delete the offending resistor from the schematic, then some other GND pad is reported as not connected to the fill area.
If you move a track from pad 2 a little to the left zones will connect and DRC will be satisfied.
Zone at bottom is also GND?
If yes - they should be connected by many vias.
If no - GND you got is certainly far away from being good GND.
Good GND should give each signal short return path and the best - going just under the signal track.
I see you are running an old version, please back up your projects and upgrade to 5.1.7
I’d like to finish the work I’m currently doing before I upgrade, unless of course using the older version is causing some problem. I’ve not had problems with this version so far. I’ve had 5 PCBs made with it successfully. I’m a little nervous that upgrading will introduce some new problem for me as I have no experience of upgrading KiCad. I’m using the only version that I have ever used.
Upgrading from 4.0.x to 5.x.x can certainly introduce some problems to you. But from 5.1.x to 5.1.y is very, very smal chance to get you into trouble as the work on it (from .x to .y) is only concentrated on fixing bugs. Of course it can happen that fixing one bug can introduce the new one. But it is something like 30 bugs fixed and may be one introduced.
You delete the old one and run the install package of new one (at least at Windows it works that way). All your settings are stored separately so are not deleted (provided you not modified anything yourself (for example by adding new symbols or footprints to KiCad libraries).
I noticed that from pictures from first post it is obvious that zone at bottom is also GND.
So: You should add several vias connecting your top and bottom zones to allow current to always travel as short way as possible and not around the whole PCB - like from the resistor you asked at the beginning to the zone island you just connected.
I am using windows and I have added some stuff to libraries, but not IIRC to the KiCad libraries. I think I have just added some ‘local to project’ symbols and footprints, and more recently I have added my own global library. I’m a little worried that I did something stupid when I was very new to KiCad that will be lost if I upgrade. I think I would want to spend time checking all my existing schematics and PCBs pass DRC after I upgraded. I will upgrade but not right now.
