How to place microwave traces exactly

[jpawlan]

Normally KiCad traces snap to specific locations and also new traces snap to center of pads. I want to be able to place arbitrary traces in locations that I want to a precision of .001 inch. Sometimes I also need the exact start and stop edges of a line to be exact within less than 0.001 inch as well as the X and Y coordinates being exact.

Is there a list of the steps to achieve this available?

[paulvdh]

1. Set the grid to 1mil.
2. Draw something that resembles what you want.
3. Hover over a track segment and press e to edit it’s properties. In the properties window you can directly enter coordinates.

You do not have to do this for all track segments, you can do this for some important tracks, then lock them and use their endpoints to snap other tracks to them.

KiCad is not a mechanical CAD program. The method above is quick and easy for a few tracks, but tedious when your designs get more elaborate. For more complex stuff it’s better to design them in an external CAD package, and then import them into KiCad as either DXF or SVG. This import is a bit cumbersome (especially for filled items) and it will need a bit of a learning curve to do it in a sensible way.

There is also the “StepUp” workbench for FreeCAD. This “workbench” is a collection of tools that is specifically designed to interact with KiCad. It is quite powerful, but FreeCAD has a quite steep learning curve on it’s own.