I am making a HAT board that plugs into header sockets on a processor board.
My board has header pins.
I would like the 3D view to be correct, i.e. the pin headers are on the bottom of the board…
When I created the layout, Kicad grabbed my designated footprints and placed them on the top of the board - as expected.
When I select the footprint on the pcb layout and Flip it, the pin 1and the other pins on that edge of the header, are in the correct position but the other row of pins is on the wrong side.
I should have expected this … haha.
My question today, is the solution simply to create a new footprint with the correct positioning of pins?
Sometimes Kicad suprises me with an ability to manipulate a design, that ends up saving time, so I thought I would just post the question.
You can see the Pin Numbers correctly line up. Too further show this, I placed the SocketHeader in it’s own PCB shape, Exported it as STEP.
Then, loaded the STEP into a Dummy Footprint (having the STEP model with a raised Z-Offset.
Then, I moved/overlaid it into approx position for posting…
I did NOT Flip it. I placed one on Top layer and the other on Bottom layer. The difference in the Text-Label color bares this out.
ADDED: Crude, quick video showing that changing layer’s will auto-flip it… (having Mouse trouble… sorry.)
It depends on whether you want the header to retain the standard numbering order, if any. For example it may be that the pads are numbered left to right, then top to bottom, looking from the top of the header. If you don’t mind using your own footprint with a different order, they it may be a matter of selecting one row of pads, and swapping with the other row. Note that this is a transformation that cannot be arrived at by rotation only.
But a better way might be to adjust the schematic. If the symbol is all of one piece, then either flipping on the Y axis or the X axis depending on whether the symbol is upright or horizontal respectively would change the assignment of the pins and achieve the same result as exchanging the rows of pads.
I don’t understand your story completely, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that you need to use male and female connectors so they can mate. Just hope they don’t start making little connectors.
BlackCoffee I don’t know which version of Kicad you are using but I do not recognize the Dialog Box in your video.
If I Right Click on the part and select Properties I have a very different layout of a Dialog Box.
So I do that and there is a place that I can select the side that the part goes on … you seem to be saying to put it on the Back.
If I do that I get PRECISELY the same result as if I flip it.
Anyway I created a frootprint from scratch but I do not know how to assign the 3D image to it, so in the 3D viewer there is nothing.
Maybe the fastest solution is to find out how to assign the same 3D image for the previous header to my new header.
Whew …
I got it.
I figured out how to add the 3D image from another footprint to my new footprint.
It looks like it will work.
It’s late here … going to close down now.
If you flip, rotate or translate the original footprint the 3D model will follow. But it seems you want to do a reflection operation which the 3D model will not be suitable unless it is mirror symmetric. Hence my preference for renumbering the pins.
Thank you for you posts.
I had tried renumbering but that does not seem to work because:
There is a notch in the image of the foorprint.
In other words the outline is not a complete rectangle.
There is a notch at Pin 1.
I really don’t know but I suspect that this is the “reference point” for the foorprint.
When I renumber, the notch does NOT follow Pin 1 to the new Pin 1 location.
I suspect that if this is indeed indicative of “center” that having said notch on Pin 2 is a problem when the PCB manufacturer/assembler uses pick-n-place to put the part on the board.
This is great. I learned something new about kicad.
I now have the icon that BlackCoffee was showing.
It was off the screen.
I expanded the window to the max and there it was.
The window was almost max, but not quite!
This is great.
Thanks so much.
