Hi guys,
I have two question here… 1. Is there a general way of enumerating pins on pcb boards
or our only option is to use the TEXT feature ??
example:
noticed each connecter hole has names associated to them likes GP20, GND, 3V3 etc.
How can I also associated names to the pins and connector holes on my PCB ??
2 I’m still using KiCad version 7.0.2 which is still very good but say
I wanted to use the latest stable version which is 7.0.10, I suppose the 7.0.2 needs to be uninstalled right ? and if so, would I lose all the symbols, footprints and 3D stp files I have added into my libraries ??
Thanks
No, it does not need to be uninstalled. Just run an update/upgrade.
If you’ve added parts to the libraries, nothing will happen. Why? Because the standard libraries do not allow this, so it must be your personal libraries that have been modified. Unless you’ve done something “dirty”. But for peace of mind, just copy the existing libraries to somewhere else where they can be recovered later.
re #1) You can place Text on desired layers (usually Silk). That way, the text will appear on the PCB as it is in the Footprint
re #2) For an un-Texted Footprint, you can Add Text to the PCB (that will live only on that PCB and will go away upon updating the Footprint (unless attention to detail is dealt with)
I suggest #1. You can get close to very acceptable by fiddling with it until you understand it (I refer to Text-Size , Grid and spacing on typed text.
Example is my older PICO… screenshot Look between the PICO and PCB - you’ll see the ordinal numbers from 1 to 40
ADDED For clarity: Screenshot with and without PinHeaders in the 3D-Model and no PinHeaders on PCB for clarity of Pads
Clarfying: There are Two Strings of text - not individual text items.
I use KiCad at Windows.
I’ve never thought of installing new version from running previous version. Such action is ‘by definition’ complicated. How system behaves when during installing new version the running exe is replaced with its new version.
To install new version I run installer downloaded from KiCad homepage.
May be it is not needed but before installing new version I always uninstall previous version. It takes not a long time but I can be sure nothing old left.
