I recently started with my first PCB. I was a bit overwhelmed by all those features and started first with a different tool (fritzen). Since the formats are compatible, I exported the gerber files and imported them in KiCad. This helped me and I was able to rebuild the PCB. The routing seems fine too.
So my issue is now, I don’t know how to align the components.
I: This is just some placeholder, which indicated the size of a display, which is plugged into the pin header below.
II: Is the pin header, where the display gets plugged into
III: Are connectors for another PCB or in the first step, just the ESP32 controller. It was my plan to have to PCB, which are connected through those pins.
So now about my aligment issue: The pin header IIneed to be centered on the PCB, the placeholder Itoo. I only added one placeholder, but there should be a 2mm gap between the other placeholders, so in total 5 placeholders with 2mm between them. The pin headers should be centered inside that placeholder. The pin headers III should be aligned vertically. The routing is not perfect yet, since I wanted to improve it, when everthing is aligned.
I checked those docs, but it doesn’t really help my. I didn’t have all the options for moving and isn’t there some easy way like a grid with snap feature? Sure, I could move them mm by mm and calculate the exact position, but is there no easy way for that?
I’m not in V9 yet, but if remember well what was written at forum 9.0.4 had serious problems with snapping to grid and 9.0.5 trying to solve them introduced other serious problems. I didn’t sow complaining on 9.0.6 yet so…
Yes, KiCad has a grid and it’s configurable in multiple ways, including different sizes for X and Y directions.
I do not know what your I is. Because of it’s color I assume it’s on a copper layer and it will short out the tracks (KiCad has DRC for that) I assume it was an error from the Gerber import and it should be on a different layer.
It’s understandable you are a bit overwhelmed. KiCad has very many tools and options, and most things can be done in different ways. It will take a bit of time to learn how to use KiCad. I recommend that you go though the Getting Started in KiCad tutorial first, and do a few simple dummy projects first. And only then continue with a real project. Wit dummy projects, you can concentrate on learning the tools, and you can skip a lot of finicky details and (tedious) repetition.
KiCad is not a mechanical CAD program, and it has far fewer options for precise positioning and alignment. But it is mostly adequate. Sometimes you will have to calculate some coordinates manually (most entry boxes also accept simple formula’s such as 3*(5+2) and you can also append unit strings).
Just move them with the m key. If you want to align them up, edit the footprints and look at the x and y values. You can align other footprints by changing the x/y values to get them to line up.
You can also use the measure tool if you want to make sure things are centered.
Iis just a placeholder I used to align the pin header or at least I tried. I was looking some some snap feature, where it shows me for example the center of the pcb so I can easily align the current selection.
Kicad doesn’t do this for you (and as far as I know, other tools don’t either). If the PCB contour is a regular figure (for example a rectangle) I do this: Trace diagonals using a drawing layer to determine the board’s center, select this layer and move the component to the center in order to get the snap. Hope it helps.
In KiCad V4/V5 you were not able to move absolute origin so I decided to work around it. In most cases I have absolute 0,0 in my PCB center. As grid origin is typically also there then I had never any problems with snapping to PCB center.
I have only some problems when exporting PCB drawings. You can see it (in V8) for example here (press ‘Read more’):
It is possible that V9 solved described there problems, but I can’t move to V9 yet.
