Hi,
I would like to re-open the discussion about the so called “local power symbol” for hierarchical designs in KiCAD. Are there some good news with the actual KiCad version?
Right now I’m working on a Battery Management System (BMS), where I have several Cell Management Units (CMU) connected in series. Normally each CMU is an individual board and in the real battery their GND is connected to different voltage levels of the cascaded battery cell string.
I would like to reduce the wiring between all boards by putting a bunch of CMUs on a single physical PCB.
In the schematic this looks like having CMU blocks connected in series. But then in the Global Power Symbol “GND” used in each CMU subcomponent would generate short circuits of the battery cell string connected to my PCB 
On the other hand I don’t like removing the Power Symbol “GND” an replacing it with a local net only, because it lacks readability and clearness.
For me the most convenient and most clear implementation would be:
-
connect individual power signals on top level to the hierachical labels of the subcomponents
e.g.
net “GND1” connected to hierachical Pin “GND” of subcomponent “CMU1” (1st instance of CMUx)
net “GND2” connected to hierachical Pin “GND” of subcomponent “CMU2” (2nd instance of CMUx)
net “GND3” connected to hierachical Pin “GND” of subcomponent “CMU3” (3rd instance of CMUx)
… -
in the subcomponent CMUx
connect the incoming net from hierachical Pin “GND” to the local power symbol “GND” and reuse that local power symbol in this sheet. -
by using this stricts hierachical approach complex grounding and power architectures in my eyes show better readability, but also reusability.
Looking forward to your responses.