I accidently removed the layer alignment target from my PCB and can’t find in anywhere in Kicad 7. I had to copy and paste it from an older PCB.
What happened? It used to be on the right hand menu and is mentioned in the Kicad 6 documentation PCB Editor | 6.0 | English | Documentation | KiCad now it is gone. I figured maybe it had become a symbol but I can’t find it.
Suggestions?
Still there, new name?
2nd. icon from bottom, RHS… the red crosshairs.
Second item from the bottom on my menu is Add an aligned dimension …
Sorry I forgot to upload this
This is when you don’t hide the taskbar. Hiding the task bar adds the delete icon
There appears to be something wrong with your display.
Below is a screenshot of the RHS, top to bottom, of my display.
it could be because of the dpi of your monitor and the size of the kicad icons… may be there is no room enough to display the alignment icon.
I can reproduce the problem and created an issue:
I don’t think that is the problem (see my next post).
In itself you are right for reporting the issue with the “overflow”. For me icons start hiding when the window height becomes lower then 890 pixels. and usability of KiCad is becoming dubious at that point. I’m not sure if being able to scroll though a list of icons is going to help then…
BTW and FWIW, those are not layer alignment markers, they are grid/drill origin markers.
True layer alignment markers are found under ‘Fiducials:Fiducial_*’
Recently I saw an unfamilar mark in a PCB made by someone else. In the screenshot, the grey is the Grid Origin, the Red is the Drill / Placement Origin and the white mark on the right is the mark I am not familiar with. It disappears when I hide the Edge.Cuts layer (which is weird), and when I examine it’s properties, it only shows: Target Properties, with some options to set. This thing also grows and shrinks with zooming, so it has a “real size” (which you can enter in the box), and this is unlike the other marks, which stay the same size while zooming in or out. I think OP is referring to this thing, whatever it is.
It’s also not a feducial. Feducials are “normal” footprints, and you get footprint properties when you attempt to edit them.
@paul: thats the (now removed from v7) layer alignment target. It appeared on all layers and creates a complete hole in the board.
Was used to align the layers in older times and also for self-produced boards (hobby user).
The replacement is to use a simple dedicated hole (NPTH or PTH).
Well then, that directly and exactly answers OP’s question 
Have to laugh, one problem solved with the opening post, another problem created. 
Thanks everybody for the replies. I raised a bug report and was told
Layer alignment target is removed from Kicad 7 because some users had problems with it. I think this is weird because if you have a problem because you added a layer alignment target the solution is not to add a layer alignment target. I don’t make my own boards but I asked JLCPCB and they told me they want a target.
The missing icons are because the icons were too large for the display I have. Setting the icon scaling to 75% restored them.
Thanks again.
I never placed a target and JLCPCB produced the boards all right. So I think if there are no targets in the first place, they add them.
The bug report you raised was:
And it links to the older discussion
I never used this alignment mark myself. And if it visually looks like a cross, but in reality punches a hole though the PCB, then it is indeed a quite dangerous thing, and I approve of removing it.
This looks like a good read on those things and their use:
And I doubt very much that JLCpcb needs them on pcb’s from their client. They very likely make big panels which collect many designs from different customers, and these big panels verly likely have such alignment holes, but they are a part of the panel and you do not have to worry about them yourself.
Indeed alignment holes only make sense at panel level.
I’ve never needed a LAT on my JLCPCB (or any other fab for that matter) jobs. However the last PCBA job that came back had a tiny hole on each board that I didn’t design. It may be something the PnP machine needed, but I’m speculating.
If a PCB is not part of a panel, then alignment holes are also used for keeping (a series of) PCB’s in the same position during the solder stencil printing process. I think larger production runs almost require a panel for the conveyor belt, but in a smaller production process it is quite possible those holes are also used for PnP.
Like so?
That is not a hole, that is a fiducial.
And as far as I know, fiducials are (at least partially) obsolete, and these days camera’s are used to use the real pads for visual alignment.
