I’m busy reverse engineering a logic board from the 80’s and creating a schematic and PCB layout which can aid with troubleshooting.
What is the best way to handle bodge wires? In KiCad you can exclude components from the PCB but I don’t see a option for excluding wires.
I want the wire to appear on the schematic but not sure how to show it on the PCB (Don’t really want to include it as a track as want the PCB to resemble the original layout)
I’m using the latest 6.99 nightly if it helps.
Perhaps a jumper, or two single pin connectors?
Just gotta luv the dedication… replicating a bodge! 
Not sure why I didn’t think of a jumper - good idea.
Might as well include all the bodges if I’m going to the effort. 
This one had me stumped for a while too - good thing ERC picked it up. Complained about points connected together with different labels. Then I saw this on the PCB - I thought they were connected. Only under a magnified pic so I see they are not connected. (A design flaw?)
I hope I never owned one of these. 
Because of the straight edge of the pad and the nearly perfect circular end of the track it seems intentional. It certainly is not an etching fault, but it could be a design error in the PCB file itself. It certainly does warrant some closer attention. What does that track connect to? Is there a bodge wire to “correct” that (possible) error?
This was from a different part of the circuit, not for the bodge wire. The track runs from a component which was installed but is not used. Def a design error as there are a number of bodges on the PCB with diodes and caps floating in the air.
They certainly did things differently back in the day
It’s from a IBM 5156 Power Supply - the logic board for the over voltage/current/short detection circuit.
You could always add a 0-ohm resistor instead of the wire?
Quick Idea & Example
Making a Bode (wire) is straight-forward to do if you’re and average CAD user.
This took about 3 minutes then I made a Kicad Footprint with it.
Did not Radius the corners…
If you can’t make your own Model and need only a couple of them, I’ll do it. I did Not make a Symbol for Schematic but, you can do that…
The 3D model and Footprint
BodgeWire_40x3mm.step (14.5 KB)
Bodge_40x3mm.kicad_mod (1.1 KB)
Nice. This is a great idea. I’ve just been teaching myself OpenScad so should be able to make the 3D models fairly easily.
Years ago, IC footprints had an extra empty pad to help machine soldering.
I don’t know what the circuit is, but this could be “guard band” or similar static shield. Very high Z opamps should have guard bands (Gnd). I’ve used similar lines tied to GND to enforce segregation of signals in redundant systems, but it could be something less critical.
Not to be too pedantic, but guard rings are generally driven to the nominal input voltage, to reduce leakage currents at the inputs.
https://www.ti.com/lit/an/snoa664/snoa664.pdf?ts=1668485709613
I also thought of a guard ring, but it’s unlikely.
Usually guard rings don’t just stop somewhere, but are a real ring (closed loop) around some track to protect, and guard rings should not be covered by solder mask. The Idea is that if a PCB becomes contaminated, the guard ring will keep some sensitive track from being pulled to some “random” voltage by the guard ring, and when it’s covered by solder mask itself, it is isolated from the environment and can’t do that.
It’s more likely this PCB has undergone some changes during it’s design, and a cleanup of open trace ends was omitted at the end.
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