Footprint made of current paths (tracks)

[StephanO]

Hello.

I am trying to make a footprint that is a coil only made out of tracks and vias. The coil must be in two different layers. I have already managed to design the coil in the PCB Editor. Is there a way to select all parts (tracks and vias) and save it as a footprint, so that I can use it again in another project?

Thank you very much for every little help.
Stephan

[jos]

Create a new footprint followed by a simple copy from pcbnew and paste into the new (or any existing) footprint in footprint editor should do.

[StephanO]

I have tried it. But KiCad is not pasting any track into the footprint editor, neither are the vias pasted.

[jos]

should work as well
need to play around a little

[jos]

you can move your tracks onto a footprint layer
then copy and move them back on their respective layers

[paulvdh]

It’s a bit late, but still…

Making a PCB inductor by hand drawing it is not such a good idea in KiCad. KiCad is not very good with graphics. There are some scripts that can help you though. For example, in the link below someone is/was working on a quite elaborate script for planar inductors.

Python Script for CFFC Planar Inductor

Greetings. I am working on a Python library for generating planar inductors that implement the “Compensating Fringe Field Concept” (CFFC) in planar inductors. I have the geometric part working nicely. My Python code generates a polygon for each layer and via arrays for the layer-to-layer connection. [image] I would like to turn this into a component with a footprint and a symbol so I can use it as an inductor in a schematic. Where I am stuck is how I can turn this group of polygons and vi…

I have also seen a simpler script on gitlab for an inductor in the form of a spiral.

With this search: Search · kicad spiral · GitHub you get about 9 of them, but you may find more with other search keywords.

[dzimmanck]

I am the author of the script younare referring to. It has been released to PyPi as planar-magnetics.

planar-magnetics

I continue to develop it with periodic releases. I recently added support for generation of core step files using the FreeCAD API.

[StephanO]

Hello.
Thank you very much for all your help. I have in the meantime written a python script, which is calculating the coil and which is writing directly into the *.kicad_pcb file.
I am no longer trying to save the coil with its track/vias as one footprint. Now I am using the script and I am storing the parameter set to “copy” the coil into another *.kicad_pcb file.

[AlfVII]

Hello, StephanO, I leave this here just in case it is interesting for you, as a full tool for planar magnetics was done in Kicad v6 and it is available online for free, including full project and gerber files:
https://autoplanar.com/