I am getting up to speed on KiCad and having some trouble with placing a couple parts. I’m starting simple and making an adapter board with a couple DIP IC’s. I was able to place those on the board and create a board outline. I need to add a couple small surface mount parts on the bottom of the board. They will be soldered by hand.
I select the bottom copper layer from the drop down but whenever I place that small 1206 surface mount footprint it ends up on the top layer of the board. Is there a trick to placing parts on the bottom?
Are you sure they end up on the top layer?
You can go to View / Show Appearance Manager then down at the bottom of the RH side you can view front or back assembly with “Layer Display Options” to confirm your placement.
See below:
I am doing all the layout as viewed through the top of the board. I seem to be able to lay down the traces ok. It was just the surface mount parts were ending up on the top layer and if I looked at the properties I could see it said they were on that layer. I still learning this tool and have a long way to go.