I have been struggling to find an answer for this, The footprint values are supposed to be shown in the Fabrication layer in the Layout. Instead in my KiCAD v8.0, it is always showing the symbol value in the Fabrication layer. Event though the library has the correct value of the footprint and the requirement for Fabrication layer output is to have the footprint value.
I know that I can manually change this, but it is lot of work for all the components and If in case If a do a versioning I would have to redo the whole thing.
A library footprint in itself doesn’t have a value or reference designator. It gets them from the symbol when the symbol and the footprint are connected. “REF**” and the footprint name as the Value are just placeholders when you look at the libraries. The built-in Value field in footprints exists for showing the value in the design which is the symbol’s Value. It’s not for showing the footprint name. So, you have misunderstood the meaning of “Value”.
You can show the footprint name if you add a custom field where the field value is ${FOOTPRINT_NAME}. Needless to say, you would have to create personal libraries and do the changes there.
Thank you for the reply @eelik, Okay, It looks like I have mis-understood the “value” in Footprint. So you mean I would have to edit all the footprints by individually. Isn’t there an option to just change for multiple components.
I am asking all this only because the Fabrication layer has to include footprint value (0603 or 0402).
Footprints on the board inherit fields from the schematic symbols. The fields are easier to edit in the schematic, in Tools → Edit Symbol Fields. I don’t know your workflow, but some users might prefer “atomic” or “fully defined” libraries where each value/package option has its own symbol.
But these changes will be local to the schematic symbol, if I had to create a new version and update the components from library , I would loose all these right?
Could you explain why?
Someone needs it?
I have never heard of such need. At PCB you simply see footprints so what for to mess the PCB with footprint names.
That requirement (point 3 of the bullet list in your link) is meant to be replaced by the schematic value during board design.
The reason for the “footprint value == footprint name” is: during footprint creation with the footprint editor you don’t know the later used value (as a footprint can be used by multiple, even different symbols). So the footprint value is taken as a placeholder.
It is not meant to really have the footprint name on plotted fabrication output files.
The ready made libraries are good if their features are enough for you. Otherwise you have to create your own personal libraries, copy the almost-good KiCad library items to them and make edits there.
On second thought, you don’t have to modify the symbols, the footprints have the relevant text variable available in any case, but you need to modify each footprint. Unfortunately KiCad doesn’t have a batch editing capability for libraries.
@eelik , My doubt was cleared by the above post from @mf_ibfeew, thought I had to get the footprint name from Library in Layout, as shown in the above link.
Thanks for assisting.
