Kicad 6 Bus questions. (Mod Edit: It's not a tutorial)

[Derhaegr]

Hi,

I am testing Kicad 6 for the first time.
I worked with 4 and 5 for years but i am also trying busses for the first time.
I found some tutorials on Youtube but i hear busses changed in v6.

Does anyone have a good tutorial on this?

At the moment i did it like this:

[gkeeth]

Buses are somewhat different in v6. I would start with the user manual’s section on buses: Schematic Editor | 6.0 | English | Documentation | KiCad

Offhand I don’t know of any tutorials.

[Derhaegr]

Hi,

I have seen that yes, having a hard time to understanding that.

[albin]

@Derhaegr

At the moment i did it like this:

That looks correct to me, but I’m also a newbie on buses. I usually just use local or global labels to connect the signal. To me the bus rarely clarifies the connections in the schematic.

@Derhaegr

I have seen that yes, having a hard time to understanding that.

Could you point to a specific part which would benefit from some clearification? Maybe we can help to interpret the things which are hard to understand.

[Chukwu_Smart]

I encountered the same prob, Kicad V6 has significant updates. visiting the docs resolved my issue.

[ML9104]

@Derhaegr

I am testing Kicad 6 for the first time.
I worked with 4 and 5 for years but i am also trying busses for the first time.
I found some tutorials on Youtube but i hear busses changed in v6.

Nothing magic about busses, it’s a way of grouping connections belonging together that would otherwise run parallel, eg, an 8-bit data bus.
Important is only to get the bus entries/exits connected and labelled right.
Your schematic seems fine to me.
I attach a simple example from one of my own designs:

[BrendaEM]

In Kicad 6, all of my Bus connections are giving the DRC warnings about graphically connected, but not a member of the bus.

Any ideas would be welcome.

This suggests that the bus functionality was never completed?

Connect pins with KiCad Bus, Labels, and Global Labels - Bald Engineer

I tried putting a wire over a bus line. That didn’t solve anything-except for making it difficult to edit.

[BrendaEM]

This seemed to have explained it. The Bus functionality is disappointing.

KiCad 5 #15 Net Names, Busses & the Netlist File

as buses cannot have real signal names, as they often do in real life.
Perhaps I could put text labels next/over the net numbering labels.

[paulvdh]

@BrendaEM

This seemed to have explained it.

No, a KiCad V5 tutorial can not explain how KiCad V6 buses work.

@BrendaEM

as buses cannot have real signal names,

Buses can have real signal names, and you previous remark already implies this:

@BrendaEM

Bus connections are giving the DRC warnings about graphically connected, but not a member of the bus.

KiCad complained that you connected something to a bus that is not part of the bus. So I suggest you read the user manual on how to create members of a bus.

I do not use buses much myself, a few days ago I read part of the KiCad manual on buses to give an answer in:

Replicate layout doesn't works with bus in hierarchical schematic

I think you have to name both the individual wires and the bus itself in the hierarchical sheet. Have a look at this: [image] Resulting in: [image] Note that only members 0 through 4 are part of the named bus, and those are the only connections that get though the hierarchy. Note that the names are case sensitive. Note that “BUS_0” also gets through the hierarchy, even though it only has a local label and does not appear to be physically connected to the bus. Note that pins 5, 6, and 7…

(And for that I a also made a little test project).

KiCad V6 also has Schematic Editor / Tools / Bus Definitions but because I do not use buses much myself, I have not invested time in figuering out what that does exactly and how it works.