Laying out my first board (with KiCAD)

Software
21

Ok. I now have 2 sizes listed under “Design Rules.” The drop list in the upper left only shows the original size. If I right click the track and pick “Select Track Width,” it shows me both sizes in the menu, but when I select the wider one, it stays the same. I even tried printing.

In Open GL view, there’s a menu option to edit properts that lets me set the width of the whole track.Oh, and I can select segments of the track and set their widths too.

I think I’ll design this for ElecFreaks or somebody to make.

22

My BZR6971 (Legacy Canvas) under Windows 7 64bit picked up the change within an instant (this project had 0.25 mm only before I went into the settings and put all those values in).

800×656 246 KB

23

Ok. I have some traces routed and a GNDREF ground plane on the bottom. Now, I want to connect this Pin 3 to the GNDREF like the ratline shows. How do I get it to put a via to the ground plane on the bottom? A hole right in the middle of the pad might do.

24

Oh yes. My gndref ground plane on the bottom is filled.

25

with the tracks and via tool.

The same tool as you used to make your other tracks.
simply press “V” and there will be a via at the “end” of your new track.
if you want the via to be within the pad simply place this via there.

by the way it will snap to the middle of the pad. you can move it afterwards to whatever position you want.
(At least in opengl mode it works this way.)

2 Likes
26

Yes. And that’s how it works in default view too. Wonder why I couldn’t do it earlier. Well, a walk to the post office solves many technical problems.

27

Ok. I routed a trace on the bottom side, Net is (Q1 Pad3) where I have the ground plane net GNDREF, but it didn’t leave any spacing around the trace, just made it part of the ground plane. This, of course, shorts the current sensed + supply to ground.

I’m previewing a print just to see the actual results of what I do.

28

Did you re-fill the zone(s) (= hit [B])?

29

Didn’t know to. Now I do

30

Almost done here, but I’m having a problem with this trace:

I want this to go AROUND the via, not through it, but no clicking can get it to put a vertex to the left of the via so it doesn’t try to put the trace through the other. The bottom side trace under the new trace is actually the edge of the ground plane. As soon as I got the new trace routed, I typed B and got the edge redraw.

Oh, yes. This is default view.

Ok, I finally got it to do it, but only after closing the program and starting it again.

1 Like
31

Perhaps it was trying to tell me, “just move the silly via down so you don’t have to loop this trace so far over, idiot!”

32

And here we have first draft of the board. I’ve looked at the gerbers and they don’t look too bad.

712×531 21.2 KB

I think I might try making the power traces a little thicker, though the whole board only uses 16mA.

I’ve found LOTS of instructions for using the broken Bitmap2Component feature, but they all seem to be obsolete: The Bitmap2Component feature in my version seems to work quite as you’d expect except that you scale it by adjusting the “resolution.” Somebody’s been working on that feature.

2 Likes
33

The AC current requirements may be quite different from the DC current requirements.

I would use proper MOSFET drivers for controlling the FETs in your H-bridge rather than a transistor and resistor. It can make a huge difference to the amount of heat dissipated from your FETs, especially if you use PWM, and they take up less space on the board.

34

In the OpenGL canvas you can hold down the shift key to prevent it from snapping to the pad/track/via centers. This does not work in the default canvas though.

1 Like
35

Woa. I didn’t know this: KiCad is always fetching the libraries from github. Used up all my September data to do this.

36

There may be a way to monitor this, to check how much is actually used ?

Would be useful if Kicad reported this somewhere ?

You can also set libraries for local use.

eg When I do a PcbNew List All, I see a burst of network use, but only on the first List All. - it appears to buffer that library list ?

I notice Chrome is busy chattering away to all sorts of things… youtube ?!

Even this forum has a constant traffic load…but not huge ~90 Bytes/sec over last minute ?

37

If you select Preferences - Footprint library wizard - GitHub repository, with save a local copy ticked and a path set that you can write to ie something like \Users\Username\Kicad\modules and used globally, the libraries are copied locally once and then used from your disk onwards.
What would be helpful would be a periodic check to see if your local copy is out of date. At the moment, the GitHub version is copied when you use the wizard and updates everything ticked, necessary or not

38

AFAIK:
websites now push content to browsers… that’s how if you stick to a popular thread you will see replies to it below what you have been reading (without the whole page reloading) once they get posted. Your browser wouldn’t know when to add new content, but the webserver does and pushes the new content to you.
For this to work the browser naturally needs to talk to the webserver every now and then…

PS: yes, my firefox is open all the time (24/7) with at the moment 6 windows and 10+ tabs each :wink:

39

Are you aware of Ctrl+M (Move Exactly) in OpenGL mode? This accomplishes a relative move for any drawn element (footprint, line, text).

1 Like
40

No, not aware yet - nice.
But this won’t help you to place something in a user defined coordinate system (origin different from KiCAD origin).
The only way to do this at the moment is relying on the relative coordinate readout…

1 Like