How to create a ring shaped SMD-Pad

[Detzi]

Hey together,
for this part: SPH6611 i need a smd-ring-pad with a little spacing on the inside to a hole in its middle.
I attached my best effort using a simple THT-Pad Knowles - SPH.zip (530 Bytes) , does someone know how to do this properly?

Thanks in advance!

[eelik]

At the moment thís forum doesn’t allow downloading some file types, including kicad_mod, so you should pack it into zip or put it into an external file service.

[jos]

Your link does not seem to work. Apart from that.

• open your component in the footprint editor
• select F.Cu
• place a circle of your needed size
• place a very small smd pad so it can fit anywhere inside that circle
• select both cirlce AND pad
• right click ‘Create pad from selected shapes’

done

[maui]

this topic may help:

Kicad refuses to let me hook up ground pad on SPH0645LM4H-B Footprint

I have tried several variants of the footprint including the ones from Digikey and Snapeda. Whenever I attempt to hook up the ground pad, Kicad pops up a dialog that says, “Cannot start routing inside a keepout area or board outline”. I do not see any keep out area or board outline with this footprint. I remember this worked at one point. Pad 3 is made up of four small circles and a larger circle where all four fit inside the width of the circle. https://www.snapeda.com/parts/SPH0645LM4H-B/Kn…

[Detzi]

Thank You for the Hint - Ive Edited my post.

[Detzi]

Mh i checked my link and for me it seems to work properly… anyway if it still for some reason doesn’t search for “SPH6611LR5H-1MCILRATH-Y”
I tried what you suggested, creating a circle will only let me do so an a grafics Layer, it just ignores that i select f.Cu first.
When use two pads instead, i can select both and choose create shape… in the context menu, but that thros an error “selection contains more than one referenced pad”.
But it was worth a shot, thank you!

Edit - @jos gave the correct answer, i just did not do what is was told to do. @eelik explains more detail below.

[Detzi]

Eh thank you.
Sorry that i haven’t found this myself

[eelik]

@Detzi

When use two pads instead, i can select both and choose create shape… in the context menu, but that thros an error “selection contains more than one referenced pad”.

Draw graphics and make a normal pad like this:

Then select both and use that context menu action.

[Detzi]

That’s a really cool feature, but in this case it doesen’t help since in need something like a annular ring.
If i try it with this method, it just gives me a bigger circle Pad.
The two shapes used:

And the two after the cmd:

But this feature does look nice to create rf power splitters… thanks for making clear to me how it works!

[Detzi]

I think i just understand what you where trying to say nevermind you had the correct answer

[eelik]

That’s looks completely different from what I did. It’s important to have the copper pad inside the graphics of the intented custom pad. In this case inside the blue area, not just inside the outer circle border. That’s the idea of a custom pad - you make whatever shape you can with graphics, then place a small anchor pad there to create the anchor point for the new custom pad.

[Detzi]

Yes and i went ahead and tried:

Which is also not what you showed…of course the pad has to be smaller than the grafical ring…which is what you showed and resulst in:

Which creates what i need and wanted. Thanks for being patient with me mate! It was a long day for me sorry for being that stubborn.

[Detzi]

So for anyone interested, here is the finished footprint:
Knowles SPH.zip (19.8 KB)
including a .step Modell which was created from files @Aaron_Williams provided here
please check the footprint before using it, it may be incorrect.

[Aaron_Williams]

The step model was actually created by SnapEDA. I paid $0.99 for it, but it’s under a CC license.