I have noticed something odd in the way Kicad is pouring copper and interpreting the nets. In the attached image, I am showing 2 different grounds. They are labeled GND1 and GND2 only for explanation, they belong to the same net GND. I have poured copper on the whole board, and you can see that the ground pads of the decoupling capacitors are seen as grounds, and linked to the ground plane through thermals.
One of the CPU grounds (GND2) has been linked on both sides, but not the other, although the geometry is exactly the same (pads spacing, wire width, etc…).
Why is it so? I think it should be treated the same way, both pads should be linked on both sides.
Why is there a ratsnet? The capacitor groundpads are linked together and the second one on GND2 has no ratsnet.
Have a look at the min with and clearance setting of the zone.
(Zones do not use the global settings defined for tracks.)
It might be that the connection between the pads and the bottom gnd plane is only just possible. In that case a rounding error can be enough to make problems.
Hello!
I reply to my own question, I found something interesting. I cannot edit the characteristics of one copper pour area. However, if I set the features before drawing it, then they are taken into account. I deleted the copper pour, and drew it again, and it works. No unconnected grounds issues anymore. By the way, it might be unrelated, but I found the trick after “upgrading” to a night build to version 5. As I’m not sure it’s easy to reinstall 4.0.7, I will leave it as is. I simply hope the line grid of the opengl canvas will be restored soon because the dots ares imply invisible.
Another question: in the copper filling menu, there is an antipad clerance. What does it mean? Is the clearance different from pads and form other wires? I have set the clearance to 0.125, and it looks like what I was using with Eagle. As for the pads, I’m not sure about what to do.
And final question: everytime I have th copper filling menu, it’s fed with default values that I would like to change. Is there a way to do this? I always use the same values which are provided by my PCB maker, so making them the new defaults would save me time and probably avoid potential errors.
Any hint?
You should be able to change the properties for a copper zone.
In open gl canvas you need to either select the zone (left click on the outline -> results in the outline now displaying circles and squares around the corners and mid points.) and then press the shortcut e (or rightclick -> properties)
Or you can try your luck and directly press e while your mouse hovers on top of the zone outline.
I don’t know how to reach this in legacy/default.
The above is valid in both nightly and stable release.
I think this is used for the clearance between the pad and zone if you use thermals to connect them.
Sadly i don’t know of a place where these can be set. They might be hard coded or hidden in some config file. Maybe somebody else knows something about that.
Hello!
Thanks for your replies.
I could restore the lines grid. It would be great if it could also be displayed on top of a copper pour, but maybe in a later version…
Thanks,
