This is for a front panel; I need to make a 2.5mm by 12.75mm rectangular cutout to accommodate a slide switch. Edge cuts don’t work. Do I need to make a custom footprint which is a pad with the proper hole size?
Why do you think edge cuts won’t work? BTW you won’t get right angle interior corners due to finite radius of the tool. So they will be slightly rounded.
The keyword you probably want is “slot”. Search this forum for a lot of ideas, or check this out for a good summary of best practice (which depends on your fab house!):
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/kicad/pcb-slots-best-practices
Well, I tried it with the Edge Cut layer and then looked at the 3D viewer. It wasn’t showing the hole as cut out. I added dogbone corners.
It may not be a closed polygon. Any error messages from the viewer?
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Adding the shape to the edge.cuts layer is the standard way to create a cutout. This is also stated in the kicad manual: PCB Editor | 9.0 | English | Documentation | KiCad
If this does not work for you: something wrong. If you don’t find the mistake yourself please upload the kicad project. The fastest way in such cases to find the error, faster than (educated) guessing.
Do you have a edge cut outline? Having a hole in the PCB only works if the PCB outline is defined
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Internal cutouts made in Edge.Cuts certainly do work. Below a screenshot of a PCB with a cutout for a bridge rectifier, and I also added a rectangle on Edge.Cuts.
Also, if there are problems with Edge.Cuts, then DRC will catch them:
You can also use PCB Editor / Tools / Cleanup Graphics to fix small discontinuities in Edge.Cuts. But be careful, because it does not always move coordinates of graphic items in the way you would wish.
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