Malformed Footprint Self Intersecting Errors

[redixhumayun]

I hereby certify that I am not simply asking someone else to design a footprint for me.

This is an auto-generated message that is in place on the “footprints” section of the KiCad.info forum. If I remove it and ask for a footprint to be designed anyway, I understand that I will be subject to forum members telling me to go design my own footprint or referring me to a 3rd party footprint site.

I have a couple of footprints I downloaded from 3rd party sites like Ultra Librarian and SnapEDA. However, when I include the footprints in my layout and run the ERC, I get errors stating “Error: Footprint has malformed courtyard (self-intersecting)”. I’m not quite sure what the error means and from some basic Googling, I can’t figure out either. Here are screenshots of the relevant footprints

In the first screenshot, the highlighted L1 footprint displays the error

In the second screenshot, the footprint U1 has the same errors showing.

Note: I included the screenshots in the context of the layout itself, in case the way I have laid out the components might be what is causing the error.

[straubm]

This is an example of a self-intersecting polygon:

Sometimes you have to zoom in considerably to see the defect.

[EDIT] It’s a simple rectangle. Delete all the lines on F.Courtyard and draw a rectangle on this layer.

[hermit]

Could endpoints simply over lap or perhaps an extra ‘side’ got included? But, yeah. Seems a simple fix on this one. Just do it and move on.

[redixhumayun]

I forgot to post a reply to this thread. I ended up fixing the issue.

When I examined the footprint in the footprint editor, it seemed that there were lines drawn over one another on the front silkscreen. Removing the second line on top of the first line resolved the issue.

Not sure what caused the issue in the first place. Perhaps it was just a faulty footprint I downloaded from SnapEDA.

[eelik]

@redixhumayun

Perhaps it was just a faulty footprint I downloaded from SnapEDA.

That happens. SnapEDA is a good start, but often the footprints need a cleanup and editing. It’s not very useful for simple footprints because you can create one from scratch even faster than download and edit an existing one.

[hermit]

@redixhumayun

Not sure what caused the issue in the first place.

I think these are automatically generated so you’ll have to ask the algorithm.