I have terminal blocks and resistors on my PCB. The resistors show up in the 3D view, but the terminal blocks do not. I tried a few different terminal blocks, and they don’t render - just holes on the board.
Is it possible to make it render the terminal blocks?
It’s possible to hide tht parts from the view, check out the 3D viewer options.
If resistors are SMD and not tht than first thing to check is if you not have tht hidden at 3D view.
If resistors are tht than first thing to check is if in footprint editor terminal blocks you use show 3D view.
Do you see them in the footprint editor 3d tab? Might just not have them.
Not all footprints have models, this FAQ explains why: Why a footprint points to a 3D model but the model file doesn't exist?
In the case of a terminal block I was using, I found a 3D model somewhere else and associated it with a footprint in my personal library.
When you guys tell me to enable THT in the 3D viewer, are you talking about the option that is shown to be turned on in the screenshot I attached, or something else?
I opened the footprint editor, opened the 3D viewer, and clicked through at least 30 different TerminalBlock components and nothing but the PCB footprint rendered in the 3D viewer. Are they all missing 3D models?
I don’t use the kicad library, but it is easy enough to find whether a 3d model exists and is connected to a footprint. You see the linkage in the 3d tab of the footprint editor, and you can also see that the actual 3dmodel is defined in the footprint file.
This is for a v7 system on win but same idea for your version. You can find the footprints and 3d models in the kidcad program dir:
Then go find the footprint, and open in a text editor – the 3d model is one of the last lines in the file. It should point to a 3dmodel and you can peek and see it it exists:
Also note that this footprint (and many kicad footprints, at least in v7) are including the WRL version of the 3dmodel and not the STEP version. I recall something about a movement away from wrl to step, but unsure the latest. If you want to change it to step, you can edit your footprint file or change the model in the 3d tab of the editor.
Directly looking at the KiCad library directory for 3dmodels, only TerminalBlock_Altech, TerminalBlock_Phoenix and TerminalBlock_Wuerth have any files.
So you’ll have get them elsewhere or do without.
