Back in the dark ages (2 years ago) I created a board that had a DB25 connector soldered on. No problems at all. Now I can’t find that, the DB25 symbol shows no footprint. The original effort 2years ago used 5.1.5. I thought maybe it was the version so I updated to 7.07. Macintosh Ventura operating system (13.5.2) and still no footprint.
I’m not sure why/how the symbol’s footprint field was unassigned, but it doesn’t sound like an issue related to upgrading (since the footprint was unassigned in 5.1.5). Perhaps a loss of the cache file, or an old bug in the 5.1.x series? Not easy to determine the cause, but hopefully not something that comes up again in the more recent versions.
The easiest solution at this point is probably to look through the 20-odd DSUB-25 footprints in the KiCad library “Connector_Dsub” and assign the one that looks most familiar. If you have a PCB file without footprint name (or Gerbers) you could even compare silkscreen patterns to the older project while viewing footprints in the Footprint Editor. Some footprints may have changed (or changed names) since 5.1.5, but hopefully the part you are working with is represented in the v7 library.
That is simple.
KiCad treats D-Sub connectors as generic parts, just like resistors and capacitors, and therefore they have no footprint assigned by default. So, just as with other generic parts, you have to assign a footprint yourself, and as scandey alreay mentioned, there is a whole library for D-sub connectors in KiCad.
And of course, if you still have that old project, you can export the footprint and re-use it in your new project.
here’s one I did years ago:
J_DB25_F_rt_angle.kicad_mod (7.1 KB)
which probably fits this generic part:
jameco-db25
and DB9 (aka DE9) just for grins:
J_DB9_F_rt_angle.kicad_mod (5.3 KB)
J_DB9_M_rt_angle.kicad_mod (4.6 KB)
And here a screenshot of the 20 dsub-25 footprints from the standard KiCad library:
Connectors are always a bit difficult. There are both male and female parts, but the way they connect may be standardized, the footprint for the PCB is not. The old design of the Dsub connectors were very big, but when laptops became popular (somewhere in the ‘80-ies?) space was at a premium, and therefore the part of the connectors that fits on the PCB became smaller. And apart from that, manufacturers do not care about interchangeability with other brands, or they do care but then sometimes make their parts incompatible with their competitors’ design on purpose.
Thank you for the update – I was confused as I had had no problem 2 years ago (or at least I can remember. In fact, I thin I actually didn’t do any footprint set ups, even for resistors or capacitors (at least as I remember, but of coure thing were always better in the old days.
Resistors and capacitors have always been generic parts to which you had to assign footprints. At least from KiCad V3 (around 2013 or so). But the footprint assigmnent is such a small part of a complete PCB design that it’s easy to forget if you do not use KiCad often. I often have a text editor open to make notes of my discoveries when working with a new program.
Thank you for your help – After reading comments and my documentation, I see where the errors came from.
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