Is there any way to specify a part as “no stuff”? In general this is useful, and in my particular case I’m making a board that will plug into a PCB socket, so I need the DIP pin layout and names, but not the IC or socket part.
In component properties mark it as virtual.
I did that, but it still draws the IC in 3D, and it still because the “top most” part when I’m trying to select other parts (this is the most annoying aspect of it). KiCAD sees the part as a big rectangle, so my SMD parts are always covered. I was thinking of making two separate SIP headers, but then that forces me to deal with the 0.6" spacing on an otherwise metric board.
You can remove 3d model from footprint properties, it will not affect library part if you open edit dialog straight from pcb.
Regarding “top most” part issue it is annoying and afaik only remedy is to do separate headers and lock them as soon as you position them.
And there is arguably no such thing as “metric board” for any non trivial project since overwhelming majority of ICs, connectors, headers use divisibles of inch as pitch.
Thanks for the confirmation that what I was doing/thinking was the correct way for the current version of KiCAD.
The only problem I have with modifying the part directly for the PCB is keeping track that I have made the customization and that is deviates from the library part. Does KiCAD tell you your PCB part differs from the library?
No but usually it’s not a problem in such cases. If it’s a display or daughterboard or something big like that it doesn’t change much. Even if you need to update schematic and import to pcbnew if you don’t specifically instruct pcbnew to swap footprints for existing components it will keep your modification.
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