In Eagle I’m able to edit the (x,y) coordinates of a dimensional measurement.
In KiCad nothing I use to do my physical layout for mounting holes and enclosure layout seems to be functional.
I am trying to verify the on-center distance of two holes and cannot edit the start and end point of the dimensional measurement.
This might be quickest:
On a Text layer, create a line segment (nearby the two holes).
Edit it to be exactly the length of the spacing between the two holes.
Move the line segment of one end over to be over the center of one of the holes.
Check that the other end of the line segment is centered in the second hole.
You can also create a custom user grid that is the distance between the two holes. This would also “snap” the measuring tools to the same grid.
If it is really critical i would suggest to use a mechanical CAD program for this.
The suggestion is to use freecad plus its addon kicad-stepup.
There are two possible workflows. Design the board outline in freecad and “push” that to the kicad file. Or import the board into freecad and check the dimensions with the tools of freecad (either the measurement tools of the part workbench or create a dimensioned drawing with the techdraw or drawing dimensions workbench)
More details see: Kicad StepUp: The Sketcher for Getting to Blinky
As an aside:
I’m trying to use the edge cuts layer in another program.
I suppose taking one of the cad programs will suffice. I just haven’t looked into that quite yet.
On that same note what I am trying to accomplish by using the edge cut layer in another program is using that layer file to import into a program used to run a laser cutter.
In short I’m needing the edge cut as some sort of graphical file (dxf. vector. svg.)
Which now that I’m typing this I think I remember seeing something about svg’s.
That’s the question.
The “Add dimension” tool isn’t very good, if you mean that. There are other means to actually verify distances. In KiCad 5 you can snap to center of pad if you have chosen that option in preferences. Provided that the hole is a round pad, you can go to the center of one pad and set the “user origin” by pressing spacebar and then go to the other hole (pad). The distance is seen in the bottom part of the window. Or you can use the Measure distance tool if you like more direct visual feedback.
I’ll have to give that a try, but in this case I’m not measuring pads but mounting holes in the PCB. Which are part of the edge cuts layer.
The two possibilities should work anyways, they just don’t snap to the center of the hole.
Do not use circles on the edge cuts layer for mounting holes. Fabs will route them instead of drilling. This results in much higher tolerances.
Use a footprint with one correctly sized non plated through hole instead. (For example from the mounting hole library)
I’ll take a look at that.
As far as measuring goes, I can just do the math and add/subtract the (x,y) values.
Just seems like a pretty simple tool that Eagle has that would make such things more streamline.
Also the dimension tool doesn’t snap to a center line?
Or is that what needs to be set as was mentioned by “eelik”?
…except that the Measure distance tool works for this only if the center of a graphical circle hits a grid point. At least in a post-5.0 development version selecting a graphic circle and then hovering over one of its points snaps to that point even if it isn’t in the current grid.
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