I’m new to KiCad and hoping for some help. I just finished prototyping a board using JST ZH 2 pin vertical connectors and would like to dial in a PCB with the same elements. Although there are many JST connector footprints listed in the library I can’t find ZH or SUR or a few others. I see you can install libraries, do I need to download a different library for these? I came across a few forum posts that led to GitHub but that was where my understanding of these things came to an end.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
JB
I hereby certify that I am not simply asking someone else to design a footprint for me.
This is an auto-generated message that is in place on the “footprints” section of the KiCad.info forum. If I remove it and ask for a footprint to be designed anyway, I understand that I will be subject to forum members telling me to go design my own footprint or referring me to a 3rd party footprint site.
If the exact footprint is not in a Kicad library, you may:
A. find a suitable alternative that does exist in the Kicad libraries.
B. Modify a Kicad footprint to suit your purpose.
C. Import a suitable footprint from a third party.
D. Build your own footprint.
In the case of B, C & D, you will first have to create your own personal, empty, library/s in which to place the footprint as Kicad libraries are Read Only.
If you have yet to create personal libraries, here are some links to follow:
With that said, I almost always create my own footprints from scratch (or by modifying one of my current footprints). It’s quick and easy to create your own footprints once you’ve done it a few times.
I would also recommend watching some Youtube videos. I don’t have any particular recommendations, but it’s usually a good source to learn new things.
My YouTube Video on making a Jumper-Wire contains making a Footprint for it (at around 24 second into the video.
There are basically two ways to add Pads (drag and drop or, use the Footprint wizard. They are the two Icons at top left of Footprint panel)
Vid creates it quickly then, adds Silk-Screen to it. But, there are many tutorials/videos on making Footprint so, find one that works for your learning style… In some other vid’s of mine, I show making Connectors and Footprints for them…
JST SUR series is actually in the KiCAD Library. Check the “Connector_JST” category or just search for JST SUR.
If you are not experienced to make one 2-pin ZH connector footprint just edit one of the available JST (or other brand with similar pitch and roughly similar look) which is the closest. Not sure if you are looking for TH or SMD version (ZH has both options and top and side entry for each option), but looks like JST ZE or AUH may be a quite close match.
@greg_m, I started tinkering with those two suggestions then thought I’d search one more time and found a library with ZH TH (what I was looking for) on GitHub. Not sure if you’re supposed to link to someone else’s footprints but if you search for JST_ZH_B2B-ZR_1x02_P1.50mm_Vertical.kicad_mod on GitHub it will hopefully lead you to it.
I still need to learn how to create footprints…but I’ll save that for later
