I’m total newby on kicad, or even cad tools in general. This is my 1st post on the forum so if something is not “appropriate” just let me know.
I’ve successfully imported my netlist into Pcbnew, but then all my footprints are piled on the same location outside the sheet.
By reading the documentation, I’ve seen there should be a right-click option named “Global spread and place”. But I’m not able to find it… I’ve searched through the forum, see that by switching between legacy/OpenGL/cairo mode it could appear / disappear. But I’ve never see this option. I guess it’s a KiCad v4 option only and so the Pcbnew doc provided with KiCad 5 is outdated. Could someone clarify this to me ?
Then I’ve found a post talking about the “Place footprints automatically”, and the necessity to draw the outer edge of the board to make it works. I have drawed a rectangle on the “Edge.Cut” layer with “add graphic lines”*, but none of the two options, “offboard” or “selected”, works, my footprints stay in pile ! And yes, I’ve selected the footprints, and yes they were outside both the sheet and the outer edges.
(* I’ve seen the “add graphic polygon” but no way to select the tool, when I click on its icon, it’s the “select item” that is selected! and I guess an unclosed shape could be problematic to place footprints, I hope it is propperly by extrem-zooming in the last edge)
What am I doing wrong ? Or maybe it is a (un)known bug ? Any help greatly appreciated.
I’ve downoladed kicad v5.1.4-1 64bits yesterday from the kicad official site, and I’m under windows 10.
Note: thumb up to the kicad dev-team, what I can see from the tool is really great !
V5 should not behave like that. It should place all components nicely ordered next to each other grouped by hierarchical sheet. How did you import the netlist? How did you generate it? Which toolset did you use while importing? (was v4 involved at some stage?) Can you share your schematic? (or better all project files)
You could also try to purge your config directory (make a backup first) maybe there is some old v4 setting surviving that should not be there.
I’m using 5.1.4 with Windows 7 and Modern Toolset (F11).
When I read that Legacy Toolset is to be deleted I decided to not learn how it works.
When I import netlist (one sheet schematic) footprints are distributed (no one on another one).
When you have some footprints one on another and select them all then under right-click menu you have the “Align/Distribute” submenu and then “Distribute Horizontally” and at first it looks it don’t works. But if you move one of elements far away from others and then select them all (including that one) then that function distributes all selected elements in the distance from them all to that one.
I’m not sure but may be the function “Place|Place Footprints Automatically” needs some elements be located in the pcb (set by Edge.Cuts) and may be locked. I have just imported netlist for my second PCB but as I partially distributed my footprints manually I don’t wont to damage my work by experimenting with those functions now.
It might be that the place automatically tool only works in modern toolset (like most tools to be honest. I can not even test it as the legacy tools are already removed under linux)
My schematic is really basic, so there is no hierarchical sheet.
I’ve generated the netlist thanks to “tools/generate netlist file…”, its 1st tab “Pcbnew”, and I guess I’ve tried with and without default format (but not tottaly sure). Then, once Pcbnew started, loaded the netlist with the “tools/load netlist” entry.
I’m a true KiCad newby, this is my 1st installation, my mouse never touch a kicad v4, even on the web !
Here is my project, be aware that I’m trying to make spice simulation working on the schematic, then the *.cir files. I’ve played with these AFTER trying pcbnew, in case this is revelant. preamp.zip (218.8 KB)
A last word, I’ve done the footprints assignement quite quickly, if the culkprit can hide there.
It is not the project that is to blame. For me both the netlist import (and update pcb from schematic) tool as well as the autoplace stuff work. (tested in both fallback and accelerated modern which are the only two options i have)
So my guess is you are using the legacy toolset. (Check under the preferences menu)
I have opened your schematic - R1 is not connected - see small square there.
I have opened your pcb. Place - Place Footprints Automatically - Place offboard footprints placed all footprints in the pcb.
But when I switched to Legacy (F9) it doesn’t work.
But (in Legacy) when I deleted all footprints, generated netlist from schematic and imported it into pcb then footprints were distributed.
So it is not the reason to get them one over another.
Maybe I have an usual suspect, I’ve started the schematic yesterday at home on my linux box (xubuntu 19.04)… who’s shipping kicad 4.0.7+dfsg1.
I won’t have the time to try it on kicad v4 tonight, but tomorrow at work i’ll restart the whole project from scratch on v5.
You can get 5.1.4 for the Ubuntu family by following the PPA instructions on the download page. Working on different versions is going to cause major confusion and break projects you move around.
I’ve apt-get removed kicad4 from my linux box, and installed kicad5 from the PPA.
There’s an annoying quirk, it can not found any footprints, I had to manually import each directories from /usr/share/kicad/modules in the left part of the “footprints editor” (i’ll post a new thread for this asap).
By the way, it works as expected in kicad5 on my linux box: components are spread when starting a pcb.
As a noob, it looks like sharing one project in more than one box is not as easy as it sounds, at least for footprints and spice models. I won’t do that anymore until more familiarized with kicad and its libraries…