I found the “pin editor”. I am working on a travel laptop. 13" Low res - thsi is not my primary function so that is how it will continue… but now that i know the limitation i can deal with it.
Many thanks for your help.
G
No problem. Have fun with your project.
It would be worthwhile considering upgrading to a more recent version. There were a couple of quite significant bugs for macOS users that have been fixed between 5.1.2 and the latest version (5.1.6).
Hi John - Before I mess with my setup ( and since nothing seems to be a bug yet - all are intended (!) to work as they do)
- Does an upgrade preserve all my library pointers, settings etc.?
- Is there an in-progrma upgrade facility that is incremental (only touches updated modules)?
TIA,
G
Hi Renee -
Yes,i foudn and read that. It pretty much answered my question well. The biggest problem at that point is that the pin numbers were not displaying in the footprint until i zoomed it to a not-easily-usable level. If even a hint of their presence had been there it would have been obvious…
thanks
The size of the pad number in the footprint depends on the size of the pad as it is ensured to always be rendered fully inside the pad.
My guess therefore is that something is fishy with your footprint (see the screenshot by @SembazuruCDE how it should look like)
very possibly. As i said, i downloaded it from a distributor’s site, not MAXIM since they dont have one 
Anyway, i now have double checked everything and it looks correct.
The package for this chip is a standard IC package, you shouldn’t need to use their footprint. I’d probably just go with the footprints that come with KiCad because it is an already vetted footprint (by Rene and his team, but they are only human so use whatever size pinch of salt you are comfortable with) and stylistically matches (silkscreen outlines, font sizes, fabrication layer details, courtyard, etc) the other KiCad provided footprints. There are also versions of this footprint in the KiCad libraries that have elongated pads to make hand soldering a little easier.
But in the end that is really your call, and what you are comfortable with.
Well to be honest the copper restring size is quite small in your footprint. You might want to reconsider using that footprint as is to be honest as soldering with that little copper is rather tricky.
I agree and planned to look at that.
Is there a better one ( a standard 20 pin THT DIp for example)? or should i just increase the OD of all the pads. If so can that be done wiht a single command (grouped)?
I have never had a problem upgrading on several machines either on macOS of Linux and my preferences etc have been preserved - the only issue has been upgrading between 4 and 5 where the issues are well described in the FAQ. You can even run 5.99, as the 5.99 preferences are kept apart.
I tend to keep the footprint and symbol assets separately as git clones in any case and can update them via git when I want.
The kicad footprint assets are very good indeed. Why look any further?
I looked further mostly because i could not find a 20 pin footprint. I typed in 20 PIN and got some headers and an SMD footprint.
Not sure why.
I did figure out how to modify all the pins. Again pretty unintuitive but Google was my friend 
Well 20 pin might be the wrong keyword to search for 
Check the kicad library convention for the naming convention of our parts and you will discover that you might want to search with “DIP-20” or even just use the assign footprint tool with the filter set to “by pincount” How can i assign a footprint to a symbol?
I will read your link. Thanks.
I quote myself:
and
and
For reference, that footprint is in the Package_DIP library of footprints.
I don’t know macOS but under Windows if I uninstall the previous KiCad version and install the next one all my settings are preserved. It is because settings are stored in user directory and not KiCad install directory.
Don’t know. I personally prefer to be 100% sure that I have the whole program installed with nothing left by accident from old files. So after uninstalling KiCad previous version I check in file manager if the whole KiCad directory was removed before installing the new version. I know it costs some time more but I just prefer to check everything myself
thanks for that. I’ll pull it up and look. In the meantime i made my own modifications to get much larger solder pads, including oval (in the cross direction), and labels that are meaningful to me. So i’m probably good on this particular part.
Making it, honestly, was more of a learning experience. I won’t always have a ready footprint.
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