Hello friends,
So… I’m making an FFC connector extender.
they have these 2 pins labeled MP1 and MP2 or SH1 and SH2 on some datasheets
I suppose they’re Mount Pad 1 and 2 respectively, unless I’m mistaken because they don’t
seem to be connected to anything besides being soldered to keep the connector secured
on the board. I don’t know how to deal with them.
If I flag them with the no-connection flag, will they be soldered on to the board during
manufacturing ??
Or should I ground them in order to get them soldered to the board ?
Also, I have the error: Input power pin not driven by any Output Power pins…
obviously, they’re just extenders thus this error should be irrelevant. right ??
There’s also 2 errors of: Failed to read simulation model from fields
which I should also ignore in my case, right ??
The no connect flags only affect ERC, and it has no bearing on the PCB. Whether those pads get soldered depends on the design of the footprint (Pads, Soldermask and such).
KiCad does not know it is a connector, but you do. So set the “Electrical Type” of all pins to passive. You can do that with Symbol Editor / Edit / Pin Table
Hi Paulvdh,
thanks again for the help. Very much appreciated.
Please, look at this… I have done what you’ve suggested but I’m still getting errors.
Unless, It is recommended that I set the Electrical Type to Passive before I wire ??
Anyways the only pins that are left unwired are the MP1’s and MP2’s
I suppose these are errors I can ignore ?
example: Failed to read simulation model from fields ??
The ERC is not very smart. It can’t read your mind.
In your case, the ERC is notifying you that there are no wires attached to pins MP1 & MP2. This is only a prompt from the ERC in case you have forgotten to connect wires to those pins. You have not forgotten. You have deliberately not connected wires, so these warnings can be ignored.
You can remove the warning if you place a “no connect” sign on the unused pins. This tells the ERC you intend to not connect the pins.
The “no connect” sign is the blue cross, seventh item down on the RH list of “select items” in the schematic editor OR hotkey Q.
Yes, get your symbols right before you start wiring.
I don’t know about the simulation warning. Simulation is generally about circuit design, not the schematic or PCB layout.
Did you try to run a simulation between two connectors?
When ERC is run, KiCad shows this error by default for any symbol that does not have a simulation model attached. You can change this by right clicking on such an error in the ERC dialog and then select: Exclude this violation from the popup menu.
Thanks for the post, Paul.
I don’t use ERC so I went exploring
7.0.8 and my brand new 7.0.9 as well as the current 7.99 all have the “Spice Model Issues” set to “Ignore Tests” as the default, and when run, are not displayed in the “Violations”.
I suppose this means the OP, at some time, must have altered the default in their Kicad.
Maybe the defaults changed? I’ve seen the message pop up a lot in ERC by projects from different people (mostly projects posted here on this forum). Nut it’s not very important once you know how to en/dis -able it yourself.
Hi Paulvdh,
Yea, i recalled making some modifications to the settings a week ago
while i watching kicad tutorials on youtube but everything is good now.
I’ve become used to the changes and i can now modify them to my preference.
By the way, I got some questions…
So I Filled Zone my board to GND by following a very good tutorial
but for some reason, the board of the person doing the tutorial’s color changes from blank to grey when the Filled Zone was completed but my board remained blank as if nothing had happened…
Here’s an image of the tutorial filled zone before and after
BEFORE FILLED:
My board hasn’t changed color. It’s just blank like before with the filled zone
i have made around it.
Is it normal ?? Also i see the GND routes hasn’t blended with anything or faded a little with the board
I’ll admit that i have not designed the board on the Edge.Cut layer
I designed it on the F.Cu, might that have caused this ??
However I do get a nice board just like i wanted when i look at the 3D view.
I’m just worried that the Filled Zone hasn’t been applied successfully
and i will end up with an unfilled copper fill board.
There can be a few reasons for this. First, press the B key. It is for re-calculating internal zone geometry, and depending on KiCad’s settings, this is not always done automatically. Another possibility is that the net of the zone is not set properly. If the zone can not connect to a pin, then the zone is not filled.
Oh and yes, I forgot…
one last thing…
Noticed that on my last reply
I got an image with the 3D view ?
you see there are J1 and J2 for the components I placed on the board.
How do I get rid of them so they don’t print out as show in the 3D ?
I realized that I cannot delete them.
Unless it is just for references only and the J1 and J2 wont be written on the PCB board during manufacturing ??
