Hi,
Since version 7 I’m unable to assign different net classes to various nets the way I used to do in previous versions. I find frustrating changing good things I got used to.
I opened Board setup-Design Rules-Net classes and I can’t see board nets to make the assignments. There’s an empty window. How can I see nets and assign them?
This is how it’s done now:
Also can be invoked from the PCB editor.
I don’t see advantages for me, since I was very happy with the old way. The track properties are specific to PCB design not schematic. I don’t need to do more clicks to get the same job done. Maybe this was a too bald move. I hope the v8 won’t make me build all PCB into schematic editor.
It can be accessed from either, see here:
where it says: Net classes may be created and edited in either the Schematic or Board Setup dialogs.
You asked about netclass assignment, so just read the bottom part of the panel. The top part is either schematic or layout specific. That first link was to the part of the documentation where all the methods of defining a netclass are explained. The doc author didn’t want to repeat that material so a link was used from the PCB editor doc.
Are you sure? I see at schematic which nets are hi-voltage and need higher clearance than others. I see at schematic what part of schematic is galvanic isolated from the rest so to define a net class and assign it to all nets in that schematic part.
Looking only at PCB it is not so clear than at schematic.
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I understand you try to help and I thank you. However, I wasted a few hours of my life reading documentations and trying to find the solution to set net widths as before. Although it seems a bit humiliating for me if someone posts here a direct link I didn’t see, the “old way” should have been keep. It really takes 7 major versions to reach the conclusion the old way was wrong? No. There’s something wrong with the new cumbersome and non-intuitive way. I don’t intend to make new habits of labeling each net in my schematics just to define track thicknesses.
The reason I downloaded new version was to ease my work with new functions and improved interface. Well, I was kind of wrong.
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We’ll just have to agree to disagree then. The default netclass still exists and generally I have one or two other classes at most to define settings for and I’m done. Not sure why you need to find and set every net in the design.
I have no experience in that matter yet (last time I used net classes in V5). Reading what you write I suppose I will also have problems when I will try to use it.
In past I used classes only to specify higher clearance for 48V nets. I gave all them the names like H1, H2, H3,… and then inserted all H… nets into HV class.
I don’t use classes to specify track width. I select width on the fly according to situation. I am trying to have VCC as 1mm track, but when going in corners under TQFP I use 0.7mm, when going with VCC under 0603 I use 0.4mm and when I am connecting 100k pull-up to VCC I use 0.25mm track.
The reason I downloaded new version was to ease my work with new functions and improved interface. Well, I was kind of wrong.
Expecting to get a better user interface and at the same time expecting that no change occurs on the user interface will not work ( in german we have the saying “wasch mir den pelz aber mach mich nicht naß”, but I don’t know if that translates well into english).
For new versions always dedicate some time to get used to new/changed features/workflows - it’s the nature of development. Sometimes also bad developments happen, than maybe changes get reverted with future versions.
But to deliver also some (possibly) useful tips (if you still want to set the netclasses from the board, which I like the others don’t recommend):
- first: this works only for named nets/tracks, so the nets must be labelled in the schematic (local, global or hierarchical label is not important)
- than in the board editor:
- Board-setup–>Design-rules–>netclasses: define your needed netclasses with the desired width/clearance values (see picture 1)
- in this Board-setup netclasses dialog you could directly use the instructions from retiredfelines first answer. The netclass-dialog works the same in board-setup/schematic-setup.
- as an option: close the board-setup, select a already drawn track, RMB-click–>context-menu–>Assign netclass (see pic2+3)
- if you later look into Board-setup netclasses dialog you will find the track-name and the assigned netclass written in that dialog (see pic4)
attention:
selecting multiple tracks and than use context-menu–>Assign netclass seems to be buggy (I guess nobody noticed until now because netclass-definition in board-editor is really uncommon). I have to check this more exactly and maybe open a gitlab-issue.
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Terribly inconvenient and frustrating innovation with net class assignment feature in KiCAD 7. The first thought when I encountered this issue was it’s a direct humiliating of users, really (not even speaking about my perplexity regarding the amount of developer team’s hard work spent to saw off user’s leg and give them a crutch instead, saying it is actually better way to run).
Now, in order to assign a new net class to several dozen small connections between sensitive components within a module, which need their own separate net class, instead of few mouse clicks on each of them, I either have to manually type a bunch of net names by memory, because there’s no way to Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V for net names (which also consumes time, by the way), or even worse–spend a lot of time at schematic editor, manually typing labels for each single net, which already have their unique Net Names… because you cannot quickly assign a net class without creating a label, which nobody will ever read.
I’m feeling a lot of frustration - too many hours spent working on the project in KiCAD 7 before I encountered this issue just to cross it out and roll back to the last saved version of the project for KiCAD 6.
I sincerely hope that with the new versions, the uncomfortable crutch will be taken away from the user and the leg will be sewn back.
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