I have been using KiCAD before and made some nice PCBs. Today I finished an circuit diagram and assigned shapes. But in PCB design I noticed that some pins are off-grid and from SMD parts some pads seem missing (A SOT23-5 hat two pads).
Please find the attached screen-shot and notice that the 3D part and the pads are not aligned, but also notice that pads 2, 4 and 6 are half a grid size too far up. This is killing.
As I am not an seasoned KiCAD user (yet) my question is “what am I doing wrong?” as I cannot believe the libraries are rotten. So I went to the library editor to eliminate wrongdoing on my part (in my project) and surprised to find the problems there too.
All footprints I made myself, in my own library are okay.
My machine is a Linux Mint 18 fresh install (less than a week) with KiCAD installed via synaptic. KiCAD is 4.0.2+dfsg1-stable.
Make yourself also this easy footprint. I usually make my own footprints, but as the Kicad libraries are more and more reliable, I start now my footprints from the Kicad library ones.
For aligning footprint-3Dmodule:
Use Freecad + StepUp tools.
Install the nightly builds instead of stable and discover the amazing new 3D viewer.
(Never done myself) Find out where is the anchor of the 3D module you are using and place the anchor of your footprint (the one you will make) in the same position.
Each of the 3 solutions require some learning, I know.
Where did you get this footprints from?
The current official library does not have a pin header like the one you showed.
There are 3 straight pin headers for each pin pitch (1.27mm, 2mm, 2.54mm):
one is for through hole pin headers and two are for smd pin headers.
name of the through hole type: Pin_Header_Straight_1x06_Pitch2.54mm
I’ll start by answering your question: “Where did you get this footprints from?”
As described, I installed a PC with Linux Mint 18 just over the weekend. And then installed KiCAD using Synaptic. As far as I can see the normal way to get software running on the system. And similar to what I did on the Ubuntu system I had before. The library I made on the old system worked without a problem. It looks like the problem was in the footprint libraries. And it looked like it had something to do with rounding. Many parts were affected.
Between the first post and now I have removed the version installed by Synaptic and added a PPA and installed the software that way. (As described here: https://kicad.org/download/linux-mint/ )Then it was not obvious that the libraries had to be obtained using Github en when all that was done I had to reassign quite a lot of shapes as the now have different names.
Bottom line now is that we are almost 8 hours down the line and it is working. All looks like it should.
I think we better move on: The above describes what people can do that have the same problem and I think it has no use to get to the bottom of this.
Hi Pedro
Thank you for showing a way out. I can make all symbols myself, of course but that is not why there are libraries. It defines us a human beings that we (re)use work of others before us. Can do, but it is a lot of unneeded work.
It seems reasonable that if I install applications using synaptic on a fresh system I should get a working application. I am seasoned software engineer but I get frustrated by things like stupid defaults (like KiCAD opening the size of a stamp) and I can easily see why Linux is never going to be the leading system… Sorry.
Personally I would prefer less updates and more stability. (read below)
I have to dive into making 3D shapes for the parts as I am making lots of parts and I am impressed with the 3D option in KiCAD. It is one of those thngs where a first you think "I have been making PCBs for over 30 years and never had 3D, why do I need it? But then, once you see it, wow!
Thank for your input. And see the reply below for how I got out of the woods.
I didn’t want to open a new topic, I wrote it here.
Sorry, I found a bug in the “TO_SOT_Packages_SMD” footprints directory. The pin of the TO-252 package are not dimensionally accurate! According to the datasheet, the pin distance is 1.27mm. The TO-252 parts in the parts library have a footprint of only 1.143mm! Please check the bug and fix it. I use KiCAD 4.0.7. Thank you…
This is an old thread and will close. While I appreciate @RendszergazdaNyh not wanting to start a new thread, the software used here makes it problematic, especially for longer threads.
