First Schematic - Looking for Pointers

[bwilliams60]

I have moved things around and now I want to head for the finish line. How do I make my traces wide enough for the current they will carry. Should I just set a global width or do each one individually. I have not measured all of them on my board. Just the heavier ones which are running under an amp.

[Piotr]

@bwilliams60

Should I just set a global width or do each one individually.

I’ll not help.
In Protel if I change width of one track segment I can click button that I wont to extend my operation. Then if I wont to change all tracks (and lines) I need do nothing - just click OK and all tracks (and lines) will get that width. As I probably don’t wont to change the lines width I would need to chek box named “The same layer” so only line segments at that layer will get that width.
I don’t know yet how such global operations to do in KiCad.

[Rene_Poschl]

@Piotr

I don’t know yet how such global operations to do in KiCad.

This will depend how @bwilliams60 setup their board. If they have different netclasses for the different current requirements then simply changing the width in the netclass editor should update the board. (Assuming the traces are set to “width equal to netclass”)
It might be necessary to use the tool “Edit --> Edit Track & Via Properties…” and choose the “Set to net class values” option for this to take effect. (I am not sure if one needs to have the traces and vias in question selected.)

If there are no netclasses setup or the traces are not setup to get the width from the netclass then the user needs to select the traces they want to edit and use the change vias and track properties dialog. (I don’t remember the exact wording of the option. It is found in the right click context menu.) This is the only dialog right now that can be used to edit properties of more than one element at once.

There is another possibility of why this might fail. If changing the width would violate DRC then the trace width is not updated. (There is a bug report requesting the opposite behavior.)

[John_Pateman]

I still think there are some further optimisations which might help you here. Unless your layout has to be fixed in the position, I would suggest that you have a look at moving J9 to the far left - in line with your other connectors. Have you considered rotating J5 90º clockwise and J7 90º anticlockwise? There might need to be some tinkering with the fuse position which would give you more room for wide tracks.

You might struggle to get anything high current between the pins of these connectors & you might benefit from putting in a ground fill.

[nhatkhai]

Are these connector will connect to the other board via a cable? If not, you may need to make sure all the board not going to kick each other when they directly connect to these connector (board-to-board).
It usually better to start with the right trace width so that you don’t have a change to redo whole thing, it is very import for design that have a lot of traces, and space are constrain.
Now you have to either re-route each of them with thicker traces. Or figure out how to do the global change the traces’ width (which I never like to do, and never do it before). But event that, you still have the risk of DRC violations, and reroute traces. If lucky just couple. If not, every once of them.