My Problem is that JLCPCB has a limit on how small one can make reference designators. And i have a high density design for a 4in1 drone ESC on which the reference designators with JLCPCB restrictions do not fit. What should i do? Delete them? Move them to the side?
Thanks in Advance.
Please explain âmove to the sideâ.
A picture of the board might also give members ideas for suggestions.
You know how to adjust the size, you know how to move them . . . so you know how to work KiCad, the rest is down to you, you need to decide. Itâs not a KiCad question/issue.
Till 2017 all our PCBs we ordered without silk-layer at all. It was because in (used by us since 1997) Protel 3 we used silk-layer for our documentation needs (for example diode footprints had a cathode line going just through one pad). There were no other layer (flipping with footprint between top/bottom PCB sides) that we could use for it.
So we order PCBs with silk layer since I moved to KiCad.
You can not delete them. They are an mandatory part of the footprints.
An ESC for a drone is usually a quite small and densely populated PCB, with very little room for silkscreen text. You can use: PCB Editor / Edit / Edit Text & Graphics Properties to move all the RefDes text to some other layer (for example User.1) This way you can control whether you want to include them in the set of Gerber files, and also turn the visibility of them on and off with the appearance manager.
Pretty sure you can disable them globally or hide per component in the PCB project without touching the footprints.
And I think what OP meant saying âmove them awayâ is something like this in left middle (R18, C28, etc) and in the centre underneath the middle red arrow (C45 to C47).
Sorry, the arrow show something completely different (fiducials). Itâs just something I found online which have designators away from the components.
I donât know who needs these references?
Assembling automat certainly not 
When we didnât used silkscreen at all we obviously had no references at PCB, but since we use silkscreen we also donât have them. All my PCBs are rather high density and finding space for each reference I see as only a (big) waste of time.
Since âalwaysâ I place all references (in Protel I had them at silkscreen layer, in KiCad I have them at courtyard layer) inside element rectangles and then have such picture in documentation.
Except picture with references inside each element rectangle I generate also picture with values inside element rectangles. When I am doing any work with PCB Iâm absolutely not interested if resistor is R7 or R15 but I care if it is 1k or 100k.
If youâre doing repairs, itâs the other way round.
In any case, as RaptorUK already said, this is not a KiCad issue. The OP Shall have to make a decision on what to do, he already knows how to do it.
Itâs not a hard limit, and they wonât complain about little bit smaller. 0.8 x 0.8 mm is mostly readable and sometimes can give you enough space.
Based on what I have read (and written) in past at forum I think that not only âI canât do somethingâ questions are legitimate topics here but also âwhat are your strategies/solutionsâ are also frequently discussed. For example a question when user defined footprint anchor to locate at its center, pin 1 or elsewhere is not of kind âI am not able to do itâ but âwhat are your strategiesâ and I think such questions were not called as being not KiCad related. The question about placing references on the PCB is, in my opinion, of a similar nature. It is more KiCad related than electronic related to be send to other electronic forums.
All of my footprints have silk set to 0.64 x 0.64 x 0.15 thick line. The line width is the main resolution limit for silk and most fab houses spec 0.15mm min, or 6 mil (0.1524mm) for the expensive US places that cost 10 times what JLC charges. For ID labels on test points or whatnot 1 x 1 x 0.25 is nice â italic also nice for these.
This board was made at JLC. Note that they added some even smaller (looks about 0.5 high) batch-id text under a dc converter:
@RaptorUK: How can you say this is not a reasonable question for this forum? That seems to be your go-to answer lately. I understand shutting down the bots and true noob stuff, but we are stifling some potentially good conversations lately, imho.
The OP would have the same question regardless of what ECAD software they were using . . . not just because they are using KiCad. Therefore in my mind itâs simply not a KiCad issue/question.
I donât make the Forum rules and I try to enforce with a light hand . . . otherwise I would simply have locked this thread a long time ago.
It is not KiCad issue (if I well feel what issue is) but it is KiCad related question. It as also other ECAD software related question but happened to be asked at KiCad forum as being among others KiCad related.
Of course this way we can say each electronic design question is KiCad related, but for such questions there are places to discuss them and if they were accepted here than strictly KiCad related subjects would get lost in the crowd. But accepting questions about PCB finalization (even not of type I donât know how to do this or this in KiCad) we are not at risk of flooding the forum with such questions, I think.
A subject from few days ago: A beginner just used mico-vias and even he asked something else (I donât remember what) someone pointed it out to him. You could say - as he knows how to use micro-vias than he has no problem with KiCad use, so his use of micro-vias is only his decision and certainly not KiCad related so no one should bring this to his attention. I donât agree with such reasoning and think there should be (of course not precise) a border below each even using strictly logic you can say it is not KiCad issue question we assume it is enough KiCad related to be accepted here.
For repair or rework, you want to have the schematic anyway. So warm up your PC and use KiCad and the crossprobe function to find things. You can also put the RefDes on the Fab layers for documentation, or use Interative HTML Bom.
In Altium I predefined my mechanical layers and tried to âalwaysâ use them the same way. Layer 5 and 6 were for designators that were suppressedâI could make a pdf print with layer 5 and top silk, and layer 6 and bottom, for any questions that might come up during manual rework. [Iâve long used full silk boxes around components, so sizing the suppressed designator to fit inside of that box could make for a decent print.]
FWIW, Digikey has a ruler, see DKS-PCB-RULER-ND. Itâs all of $5. It has various designator sizes (amongst other things). Whenever someone asks, âwhy not use a 30mil tall string?â I whip out that ruler and show them what they are asking for. I thought it handy enough that I had several bought, one for myself and the rest for coworkers. Not saying itâs life changing, but if you have a Digikey order in, it might be a nice tool to have hanging around. [Or at this time of year, ask for it to show up under the tree.]
Kicad is typically used by many beginners without any PCB experience, many times their very first design. The FOSS philosophy is one of the main diffrences from Kicad to other commercial ECAD with subscritpion fees what require a full time professional engineer for each seat. From this view, all the beginners questions become a true Kicad question. Discourse bot always suggets to welcome the newbies. At least the forum oldtimers here should not expect years of experience with PCBs done by Eagle, Altium, PCAD.
We try and keep discussions in the open about this kind of thing. I donât get upset if someone overrules my opinion. That said, we really do have to try and limit the scope or the forum risks becoming hindered in the basic function of furthering Kicad. The Arduino forum is a fantastic place for general newb discussions about design. Layout isnât really a Kicad specific thing. I guess the basic rule is âdoes this apply ONLY to Kicad or all ecad softwareâ?
I frequent another forum that provides a web/email/etc interface. Iâd say less than 10% are actually questions about the software but are general system administration questions. It can get tedious trying to explain the same basics to users who know nothing about hosting other than they can download software and start using it. This forum is active enough.
EDIT: There are questions that indicate a user could benefit from a more general forum. Personally, I got back into electronics through the Arduino forum. Did a ton of reading there. When that took me as far as it could I discovered EEVblog. Did another ton of reading there. 
Iâm less concerned about this topic as it probably has a well-defined end point of receiving some coping methods, compared to topics where it is obvious that the noob has electronics design to learn before starting on a PCB.
This is KiCad related to some extent. Discussion about the fabs limits is useful to all of us who work with dense SMD.
