You will have to replace the GND power symbol with a CUSTOM_GND power symbol. You can edit the power symbol to do that. But this CUSTOM_GND will not be connected to the GNDs elsewhere.
That renamed symbol will only be in the schematic. You will have to save it to a personal library if you want to use it again elsewhere.
Great! Thanks!
What about the other question of how to hide the net label on short wires so it’s not obnoxious?
You can select the label, edit the properties and change it to not visible. But how will you see the label afterwards, unless you do a Find?
Sorry, not possible to do this.
Thanks, but where is the property to set the label to not visible?
If I use your suggestion above, the ground symbol itself will have the label “ZYNQ_GND”. In fact, I just tried your suggestion, but the wire connected to “ZYNQ_GND” still says “Connection Name: GND”. Where in the symbol editor do I change “GND” to “ZYNQ_GND”?
Warning says that there are somehow 2 nets now connected to the same pin…I need to find a way to ‘disconnect’ the GND net…
What version are you running? Should have asked this at the beginning. Making a new power symbol by editing the label of an existing power symbol works from v8 onwards. Before that you had to edit the name of the hidden pin in the power symbol as well.
Sorry, it doesn’t seem possible to change a label to not visible. I must have selected a value or refdes in my testing. And just as well, an invisible label could cause problems later.
I’m on v9.0.0. I downloaded a few weeks ago.
I just did Save-As on the default GND symbol from the default library. How do I find the hidden pin in the power symbol?
Forget the hidden pin thing then. You can make a new power symbol by editing the value.
As the warning says, it’ll only exist in the schematic. You’ll have to save a copy in a personal library if you want to use it in other projects.
Thank you!! It looks like it’s all working now! : )
What is the idea to add label and hide it. If you need to have specific name of a net it should be clear at schematic. I don’t see any use in the invisible label.
I was assuming that the label for the ground would be sufficient. Now I understand that the power symbol contains the net itself, therefore serving also as the net label in the case of power/ground, so I agree that there is no need for an invisible label.
Also, where do I see a list of all the active nets in my schematic?
View–>Panels–>net navigator
This shows the currently highlighted net and all occurences on the complete schematic.
View–>Panels–>Search Panel
This shows a list of all nets named by Power symbols and a second list with all nets named by labels.
Have you read Getting Started manual?
Yes. If these answers are already in the manual, I must have missed them. My apologies.
I’m not sure if exactly they are answered there (I have read its very old version before first time installing KiCad in 2017). Your questions simply look very surprisingly. I’m reading forum since 2017 and don’t remember anyone having a problem that GND is GND.
I expect in Getting started there is a simple PCB design from beginning to the end. I thought that after going through such example you should not have a problem with simply using GND and not trying to replace it with the other name.
I have multiple grounds that I’m trying to keep separate and will later tie them together in a star configuration.
The old way (and the only I’m using) is to define several GND symbols but not its name is important but invisible name of pin inside it and then use them as needed.
The new way (since V8 I think) is to put GND symbol and rename it (it didn’t worked previously as it stayed be connected by its invisible pin name to the old net and not by new name).
And then use net-ties to connect your grounds at the point you want.
After reading articles I have linked here:
I rather don’t use star configuration but continuous GND plane like here:
The new way (since V8 I think) is to put GND symbol and rename it
Yep in newer versions one can simply place a power symbol and edit the symbol text to change the net it connects to. This matches the behavior of EasyEDA (and Altium as well, I believe) and I’ve been using it for a long time. Not sure about GND symbols but definitely working for supply symbols. This is probably what the OP trying to do.
Didn’t checked it, but there is only graphic difference between GND symbols and power symbols.
The GND symbol is just another power symbol, nothing special about it.
