I need help connecting a small pad to a large trace

Good morning
I am not a specialist of PCB. I need some basic suggestions.
I see the tracks have rounded borders. How to get just sharp ?

I need to taper the track from a small pad to a larger track. What is the way?

Thank You

PS
I do not find a way to attach a picture…

I start with small track width and some distance from that small pad change track width to bigger.

Drag file into what you are writing.
If you spend too short time at forum it can be some way blocked, but I don’t know the exact rules.

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New users can post one image per post

Hello,

Starting with one track width and switching to another inbetween certainly works. But if I try to move these tracks later with “D” Kicad treats them as different track sequences and breaks the connection !?

But if you have sharp corners, the electrons that couldn’t negotiate the bend and skidded off the centre will pile up in the corners. :rofl:

Just joking of course. But is there a reason you don’t like rounded corners? To me they look better. In the past there was advice against sharp corners as they were more likely to be attacked by the etchant or something like that. It isn’t a valid concern now.

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I was surprised with that info as I remembered that if I drag (with D) not finished track (temporary ended somewhere on the way) new track segment is added to allow drag the last segment with keeping the connection to final (previous track) point (not connected to anything).
So I have just checked.
My Kicad (5.1.9) don’t breakes (while I use D) tracks changing their width on the fly.

For me also rounded pads look better. Since I moved to KiCad I use only rounded pads. The corners of the pads disturbed me in the dense PCBs because they left a smaller (diagonal) transition between the elements.

Hmm, I made a test drawing a track and changing width with “W” inbetween. When I use “D” after the track is finished it will always grab only ONE end at the junctions where the width changes. Even if I use a coarse grid to be sure I access the junction.
I use 5.1.9 on LINUX Mint without further problems and this effect has always been present for 5.x
Maybe there is a setting I dont know ?

I had never tried to drag the junction but always a segment.
With junction it really works as you have written. But what for to drag the junction?

You are right,

If I “hit” the junction “D” will seperate tracks. If not, the junction remains untouched but it will also not be part of the dragging. It will be fixed.
I am not sure if this is good or bad - possibly depends on what you are up to …

OK. I see. There is no other way to move width changing point.
Changing width is so rare that I had never a problem that I had changed it in wrong position.
Typically I start with wide track from for example pads to solder wires (to be more robust) and after small straight segment I change to normal track width.
I think it (that D or G drags only one of tracks) is probably a bug, but practically not important.

|TapereduS

That’s what I need…

Thank You

the reason I encounter this more frequent is possibly because I am doing homemade PCBs.
This means I try to use structures as bold as possible until I am forced to adapt to small components…

I was doing homemade PCB so long ago that I didn’t even dream of having a computer :slight_smile:
We ‘organised’ a free borders of laminat from manufacturing factory (most about 6x20cm). I still have something about 10kg of it I will probably never use, but it’s a pity to throw away.

Currently I understand that having a ready PCB two hours after finishing its design is some ‘added value’ but isn’t getting a professionally made PCB with metallization and solder mask worth more?

I think rounded track ends will not be a problem. If it is a problem you can use small ‘filled zones’ to finish your tracks. But I don’t know how zone corners look exactly - never worried about it.

Basically you are right. But my circuits-for-fun are mostly simple and usually I need ONE piece.
And I have the old equipment at hand.
If I was an electronics beginner today I would surely order PCBs via internet !

By the way, salvaging borders from the factory is a good idea, but I never had such connections.

In the end I can perfectly live with KiCad for my purposes. I understand that I am not the user the developers aim for - but thats OK for me !

As a scientific circle of electronics students, we asked a TV factory to provide us with PCB production rejects. The PCBs used in TV were large and the edges of the laminate were left useless for them and sufficient for us. We came back with three backpacks full of PCBs. Soon ordering the professionally made PCB became available to science club students and these laminate strips became redundant.

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Association.
Other time we (other set of we) came back from the yacht yard with about 3m³ of leftover hard polystyrene foam. I made 13 kayak life jackets myself (not available at market those time). The one on my avatar is not one of them, but of the same pattern.

@Piotr @chris9 I fail to see how your conversation is in any way related to OP’s question of connecting thick tracks to small pads.

You have accumulated an hour of “viewing time”, and that should satisfy the automated spam filter in convincing that you’re serious. I usually just use Copy & Paste, and paste screenshots directly into the editing window. But I see you already managed to post a screenshot.

A remark just for clarification:
There is no problem whatsoever in connecting a fat copper track to a small pad in itself. It only becomes problematic if the fat track does not fit between other nearby pads, and this is the case in your footprint.

I would make the middle pads of your footprint from multiple overlapping pads in the footprint itself. In KiCad, pads with the same pad “number” (actually up to 4 character alpha numeric string name) are belonging to the same pad and can be used to make custom pads with a complex form.Make sure that the pads overlap enough to be recognized by KiCad as being so. For examples, have a look at any of the symbols in the default libraries that have the word “thermal” in them.

Hi
I am glad for the help.
I am trying to get the best from the suggestion.
I see the thermal pads in the library they have multiple times the same name.
I can book the idea of including the tapered line in the footprint itself. This means there is no
way to taper a line as part of the routing,
Fix me if I am wrong.

Thank You
Pietro