Finished board, even already made. One or two small changes in the circuit diagram without changing the existing wiring. Go to Layout, i.e. PCB, update it (had inserted 4 components), and suddenly you can see a network line that, to the eye, was and is already routed. If you look closely, this ladder is “connected” to a completely different one, just not visible but recognized by the name of the same name. Clearly not connected in the schematic. How can I separate the nets again and add one to the right one? If I simply add the conductor part to the correct network, the other part is also incorrect. I’m really having trouble describing this clearly. Thanks for any help or tips.
Hallo Leute! Ich bin neu hier und bitte seht mir nach, wenn ich eine komische oder alt bekannte Frage stellen sollte. Folgendes Problem:
Fertige Platine, sogar schon gefertigt. Die eine oder andere kleine Änderung im Schaltplan ohne Änderung der bestehenden Verschaltung. Gehe in Layout also PCB, aktualisiere es (hatte 4 Bauteile eingefügt), da ist auf einmal eine Netzlinie zu sehen, die dem Auge nach schon geroutet war und ist. Bei genauem Hinsehen ist dieser Leiterzug mit einem ganz anderen “verbunden”, nur nicht sichtbar sondern erkannnt durch die Benennung gleichen Namens. Im Schaltplan eindeutig nicht verbunden. Wie kannn ich die Netze wieder trennen und das eine dem richtigen hinzufügen? Wenn ich das Leiterzugteil einfach dem richtigen Netz hinzufüge, ist dann auch der andere Teil wiederum falsch. Ich hab echt Mühe, das eindeutig zu beschreiben. Danke für etwaige Hilfe bzw. Hinweise.
Not quite sure without pictures or project files but kicad only connects pins with each other which are also connected in some way connected inside the schematic. I see multiple options on how you ended up in your situation:
the two nets of these pads are somewhere shorted in the schematic. in this case kicad will name the whole combined net with only one label. to check this you can just simply use the highlight net fuction in the schematic editor and see if both of them are connected.
the net-list is not up to date. Kicad does not automatically updates net assignments, components etc. between schematic and layout. this has to be do manually by either using the F8 function in any of the two editors or by ex- and importing the netlist.
the layout editor usually sets the whole wire between two pads, including vias etc. to a single net. this usually is not a problem as they anyway should have the same net, but may could be the cause of your problems here. especially if these pads were connected before and are not anymore.
another option could be, that any of the affected pins is not actually in the schematic symbol of this component. then an update of the netlist wouldn’t change anything.
und jetzt das ganze nochmal auf deutsch:
Ohne Bilder/projekt schwer zu sagen, worans genau liegt, aber es gibt ein paar mögliche ursachen:
die netze sind irgendwo im schaltplan kurzgeschlossen. In diesem fall nimmt kicad beide netze als eins und bennennt es nach einem der beiden labels. lässt sich relativ einfach mit der “Net highlight” funktion herausfinden, einfach eins der beiden netze hervorheben und schauen ob beide leuchten.
die netzliste im layout ist nicht aktualisiert. Kicad hat keine auto-aktualisierung für die netzliste wie man sie aus einigen anderen layout programmen kennt, dementsprechend müssen alle verbindungen immer über die f8 funktion oder den ex- und import von netzlisten gelöst werden-
der layout-editor setzt in der regel eine physische verbindung immer auf ein netz, in der regel ist das kein problem da alle verbundenen pads das gleiche netz haben, aber vllt ist das die ursache hier
außerdem könnte eins der betroffenen pads in einem der symbole im schaltplan fehlen. damit würde jedes netlisten-update dieses pad nicht aktualisieren.
And I have really trouble understanding it clearly
My associations, not necessarily matching your problem:
may be now some tracks have different net assigned that you expect - in such case removing them should get everything to order,
may be the line points to zone island, may be at other layer than you think,
you can get back to situation that everything was correct, and make your changes in smaller steps - it can help to find the problem reason and may be solve it,
may be you found a bug - in such case it would be good to send the project state before and after to developers to help them fix this bug.
That was the first thing that happened when the storage space of the entire folder was changed. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any other way to increment a version.
Then there is the effect that when the PCB is updated, networks that are not remotely connected in the circuit diagram always connect to each other.
the question mark blocks mean kicad can not find the symbols libraries. This is only the case in older KiCad versions as from KiCad 6.0 onwards the symbol data is directly stored inside the schematic file. So I highly encourage you to update to the latest version. To fix this in the old version you have to probably only update your library links (Einstellungen → Manage Symbol Bibliotheken…).
Have you checked some of the things me and others mentioned on why the faulty connections are there? With the schematic looking like it is there is no wonder the connections are not there as planned as for kicad there are no pins present in all these question mark “symbols”.
I’m glad that 5.1.4 is running for me. I only had an older one that is now finally gone from the computer. I didn’t want to have to download and install the correct version again. I guess I have some problem with some data stored in certain places by KiCad that can’t be retrieved from somewhere else or something. I’ve now managed to get everything working including changes.
The program always missed some of them (which I thought were leftovers from the older version) after a change. I’ll leave all the rubbish in there now and start a new project from scratch at some point. What is systemic about this software is not really transparent.
That gets slowly sorted out in every new version, v5 is really old at this point and has many convoluted things still in there. I promise you, keeping up to date with the version is worth here.
e.g. you would never had the problem with the symbols on the newest version for example.
The third version number change means: some bugs fixed (typically several dozen per number).
Between 5.1.4 and 5.1.12 i guess 100+ bugs were fixed.
If there is any other change than second number changes. And it happened with V5 to start from 5.0 and then be 5.1. That didn’t happened to V4, V6, V7.
I started to use KiCad with 4.0.7 and I update every time the new release is (except when new main version (V6, V7) when I wait till first bug fixed release).
Recently I run KiCad at PC I was not using for some time. I noticed the bug is disturbing me that I have already reported and thought it was fixed. What is going on - simply I was running 7.0.7 while it was fixed later. Few minutes later (installing new version takes no more than few minutes) I had 7.0.9 and no problem with that bug.
It happened many times that reported bug is fixed the same day. Once after short discussion at forum about bug I reported it to get the message that it was already fixed (one of developers sow our discussion). If bug is important for you you need not to wait for next stable release - after it being fixed you can download next day so called Test-version and you have KiCad without that bug.
If you are afraid of changing main version you should at least upgrade to 5.1.12.
According to what I remember - what is wrong in V5:
I like to have GND connection lines blue and VCC lines red - you can’t do it in V5,
I like to hide GND connection lines when I design PCB with bottom whole GND as I don’t need to plan how I will do that connections as I have GND everywhere one via from me - you can’t do it in V5,
I like to have PCB rectangle made as rectangle and not 4 lines - in case of changing size you simply drag one border - you don’t have it in V5,
not sure but probably you can’t have different transparency for zone than for other tracks at the same layer,
using V5 I dreamed of having some extra layers (to draw bottom case, and top case, and separately openings in case, and regions needed protection (while wave soldering). Since V6 you have extra User layers,
selection filter allows you for example mark that you want to select only tracks and then making selection of the whole PCB you have only tracks selected, and much more like that,
I don’t like Y growing down - now you can select direction and I no longer have to think reversed.
and probably much more that I even don’t remember that I had a problem with it and now I don’t.
And hundreds other new features (anyone finds other being important for him).
You can find the lists of what is new in each version to read and think what can be helpful.
But upgrading when the third version number changes (delay it few days - if critical bugs happen they will be found) is save.
find in installed Applications KiCad, click it and accept to uninstall (not sure if it is needed),
run downloaded new version installer.
When I migrated from V5 to V6 after installing I opened all my projects and libraries one by one and accepted saving them in new format. The same I done when migrated to V7.
But I use only my own libraries so changes in KiCad libraries don’t touch me. I suppose you will have some work to do if you want to change from V5 to V6 libraries (if remember well there were some changes). But if you have cache files with your V5 projects than probably it can be painless but I don’t know as I work based on assumption than element (symbol/footprint) used once have to be in my library forever.
