I hope you set it to 0.5 mm! Leave the others as they are.
I’m off to bed now.
Thanks for all your help!!! Pleasant dreams.
The main problem is not that these tracks are thick. The problem is that tracks to transistor are so thin.
I don’t use classes to set track width and then to use that width. I set several track widths (0.2, 0.25, 0.4, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.3, 1.5, 2.0) and then when routing I just select the one of them I want to use.
Hotkey ‘w’ and ‘Shift+w’ helps also.
OK. Sounds like a good plan. Thanks!
When I look at the 3D version of my board, I notice some of the chips are, well chips (DIPs). However, some are shown as sockets. I know I need to change the footprint in the schematic. Does it matter? Can I put sockets where the chips are shown and vice versa?
Also, the relays don’t seem to have a 3-D model. SRD Series from Songle Relay. I guess that does not matter.
Relay_THT:Relay_SPDT_SANYOU_SRD_Series_Form_C
The resistors are strange, too. Shouldn’t they be tubular??
Resistor_THT:R_Box_L13.0mm_W4.0mm_P9.00mm
Off topic but, as a rule of thumb, at a hobbyist level before you start designing you’re PCB decide on the Fab house you’re going to use. Then go to their site where they state their manufacturing capabilities. When found DO NOT use them but go bigger. So if their minimum track width is 0.01 then your minimum would be, say, 0.015 or 0.02.this means they can defo make your board.
Secondly there are a number of track width calculators available to use depending on many factors - the common ones would be current capacity and temperature rise.
Please remember the forum is for Kicad issues not user competence issues.
It doesn’t matter a hoot, not to the PCB manufacturer nor to you. The only thing that matters are the Gerbers and drill files.
But to be certain, check the footprints in your schematic for odd ones out.
The 3D thing is useful for creating assembly or service manuals, not much else.
And of course to give yourself a warm fuzzy feeling of being creative and having achieved something. Which is also nice, of course.
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For me it looks that where I expect relays I see their legs standing up from PCB. Rotate PCB at 3D to see if there is not relay at the other side?
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Can someone explain how to fix this error message in the Design Rule Checker for my PCB?
Error: Thermal relief connection to zone incomplete (board setup constraints zone fill strategy min spoke 2; actual 1)
I see where to change the zone fill strategy in Board Setup from 2 to 1, but is this a good idea, or just what needs to be done for a 40 pin header? I think I am using the correct 40 pin header for a Raspberry Pi, but perhaps I picked the wrong one? I want to put male pins on my board and a female header on the back side of the Raspberry Pi so I can just plug the Pi into my board.
Connector_PinHeader_2.00mm:PinHeader_2x20_P2.00mm_Vertical
You are 100% correct! Here is the 3D view of the back side of the board!
How did some components end up on the back side of the board, and how do I bring them back to the front of the board?
Try changing the spoke rotate angle to 45 degrees instead of the default 90 degrees
It’s not really an error, more like a warning. KiCad is telling you that the automatic (thermal relief) connection between the GND zone and the pad has only one line connection. You can probably simply ignore it unless that connection has a high current. Otherwise you could also rotate the pad or change its thermal relief settings and so on if you want a thicker connection or more spokes.
I don’t know. You might want to use the F key to flip the component to the other board side, but you’ll probably need to check/fix the connections as they will be mirrored.
Perfect! Thanks a lot!
Dooh! That is what flip does! Thanks!
In addition:
I find KiCads default clearance for zones quite big and the round pads of 2.54mm pitch footprints quite big too.
On every design I use such connectors, I always end up making the pads oval and narrower, and making the clearance of zones smaller, until the the zone connects in between the pads of 2.54m
pitch headers. In the footprint below I also shifted the pads a bit outward to have more room for routing tracks in between the pads. With these settings (and 0.3mm zone clearance) there is plenty of room to have all 4 thermal spokes.
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I realize a lot of my questions are more related to PCB design than just how to use KiCad, Is there another forum somewhere where I can ask “PCB howto” questions? Thanks!
We also export it as a step file to pass to our mechanical engineers to check for fit.
Good point.
Trololol20chars.
I need to add a custom footprint for a TO-220 heat sink. I drew the outline in the footprint editor, but how do I add the height in the z-axis so it has some height in the 3D view?
KiCad itself does not have a capability to generate 3D models. That must be done with other software. Anything that can generate step and/or WRL files should work. There is also the KiCad StepUp workbench for FreeCAD, which is a quite nice integration between FreeCAD and KiCad.
Although, I quite like the idea of drawing some outline and extruding it directly in KiCad to generate simple 3D models.
This is actually a wishlist item, Generate simple 3D models inside KiCad / support extruded outlines and footprint height property (#3453) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab. You can upvote it by giving a thumb up.
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