In KiCad it’s hardly possible to work on any project without a schematic, and KiCad has no (native) tools for panelization (although this can be done in various ways, there is even a plugin for it).
But apart from that. KiCad does support copy and paste of generated zones. Below a screenshot of a copy of several different power nets:
Your direct issue is probably that KiCad really likes to re-generate zone boundaries. By default it even does this automatically these days, and KiCad also likes to do this in various other occasions such as running DRC or during Gerber file creation. You can even (accidentally or not) set this as a (semi) permanent setting in KiCad, so it won’t ask you anymore whether you want to re-generate zone boundaries. (And I don’t know how to revert this setting).
A “real” solution is to use some external software for this. There are Gerber editors and tools that are specifically designed for panelization.
Tried it with another design. Using copy paste of the layout to another project, the (not ground, no net) is copied fine. Wondering what’s the difference. The only difference i s that the other design (above) used traces in combination with a filled zone of the same net and this one doesn’t.
I do not see an option to assign a net in pcbnew for traces and zones.The boards I try to add in one gerber have complex shapes, a tool to generate a panel will probably not do and V-cuts wont work. Combining several different boards in one gerber as one design saves a lot of costs for producing the boards. The separation cutting can be done after receipt of the boards. If there was an option to “copy with nets” and “paste with nets” in pcbnew to copy across projects, it would probably solve this use case.
not sure it is because I use linux, but there is something funny going on. I can get to the new net but not directly. sometimes the focus moves to the net textbox to enter a net and sometimes (most often) it goes back to the pad name textbox. see video
Just type in a (non existing) net name. A semicolon is not valid as a net name so that does not work.
I do agree though that it is un-intuitive to type in a new net name in a box marked as “filter”.
Edit: I agree with RaptorUK’s remark (below) of paying the price of working without a schematic. It is possible, but that does not mean it is wise to attempt to do so. Drawing some wires in the schematic is much easier, and it also self documents what you are doing. On top of that you also get ERC for free.
Personally I would create a schematic and have independently named Power and Ground nets for each circuit. They should then remain separate in the layout.
what I mean with “not intuitive” is When I select a net or “no net” in the combo drop down and then type a character it should keep the focus on the (new) net drop down box. however, it jumps the focus back to the pad name box. This happens both with a project with a schematic and without and is not related to a character or semicolon, and not related to the name “filter” as well. As you can see in the video, what I tried was a board with a schematic and existing nets. I guess there is something in the code that moves the focus back to the pad name textbox after selection of the net name dropdown.
The only way to get to entering the new net is holding down a key in the pad tetxbox and then clicking the mouse on the net dropdown.
I’ll try this tomorrow again as it is close to midnight here and I may see ghosts or it’s the several cups of water.
Yes, that what I thought, this could be Linux specific thing , if that so it may need a bug report.
Hope someone else with the same Linux environment as listed above, could confirm. Two is better than one to claim an issue.
It was the water and the late hours, I need press a key when the drop down list is visible, not after selecting and item from the drop down. I think it would help to jump to entering the name for the net when the focus is still on the net drop down list instead of having the focus jump back to the textbox after selection of the net.
Or the drop down list could have an item “create new net” to select.
