It’s a simple through-hole board–as simple as you can get, 3 parts, 3 wires.
I successfully recreated the schematic and net-list.
I read the net-list from pcbnew (successfully I think, because when I opened the PCB file, I saw three components laid on the black screen and connected on the bottom Cu with green traces.
However, problems occurred when I moved some components–footprints, rather–to get a better lay-out. Two of the green traces turned white (in the middle of the trace). The green trace that was completely horizontal turned white on the right with the left part green but hanging off vertically! And the trace that was at a diagonal angle stayed intact but changed from green to hatched white/gray/.
Should I have
[ 1. ripped up the old traces, 2. moved the parts I wanted moved, and 3. re-routed the traces ] instead of doing what I did–assuming the green traces would stretch and move along with the components as I moved them?
Is there a button or menu option in pcbnew that rips up all existing traces?
Edit > Global deletions and choose traces. The coders have put a lot of time into the manual routing. Having traces ‘rubber band’ would probably be a nightmare to integrate and every one would scream about unintended consequences.
Thank you hermit, for pointing me in the right direction.
I successfully ripped up the tracks and moved the components where I wanted them in pcbnew.
I also set up my Design rules using Setup…Design Rules…|Global Design Rules| and set Minimum Track Width to 0.006 inch, Minimum Via Diameter to 0.02 inch, Minimum Via Drill to 0.01 inch. I also set my Custom Track Widths to 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.06, 0.08, 0.12, 0.16, and 0.22 inch.
I successfully routed one track by Mouse-clicking on the B.Cu layer on the far right side in pcbnew, and then using the w key and the mouse.
I also learned to rip up a track using the DELETE button.
My next step is routing another track. In order to do this, I am investigating how to specify a track width. pcbnew seems to use the fattest track width by default, which won’t work here.
After working in pcbnew with angst and reference to my kicad notebook, I succeeded in recreating the three PCB tracks for this demo circuit by BuildElectronicCircuits. Then I drew a rectangle outline in the Edge Cuts layer. Then I printed the board to nine distinct pdf files. All the kicad 4.0.7 tools work except for the ? menu.
I am sure that my angst of working through this example PCB will help me learn the increased functionality of kicad 5.0.0, to which I next turn my attention after I make this PCB.
