Overlapping texts occurring in every newly imported part

[vizier87]

Hi guys. First post here.

I’ve encountered this in nearly every part I downloaded from SnapEDA. After importing the parts, they look like this:

If you notice, the GND pins seems to have several other duplicates (which I believe is for multiple footprints of GND, which is understandable?).

The thing is, it is kinda confusing for me.

Any pointers?

Thanks.
Vizier87

[paulvdh]

Have you ever modified a schematic symbol in KiCad, or even created a new one?

It is very easy, just hover the mouse cursor over the symbol and press [Ctrl + e] to edit it in the Symbol Editor. When you are done editing, just close the symbol editor, and it asks you whether you want to save your changes directly into the schematic.

Websites like SnapEDA, PCBLibraries, Samacsys and about 10 others make symbols and footprints in their own format, and use exporters to output the data for one of many PCB design programs. As a result, they do not have KiCad specific libraries, and it’s likely you will find small (or big) issues within their data. From what I understand, they make their money by selling tools and services to manufacturers of electronics, which also means the quality of their database depends on the data those manufacturers generate.

The way I see it, such websites can be a nice addition and save you some time when the part you want is available, but they are not essential. I do regard the schematic symbol and PCB Footprint editors in KiCad essential (and they are quite good too). With the editors you can always make any parts, even custom parts which do not exist outside your own shop.

Putting multiple pins on top of each other is relatively common in KiCad (but I don’t like the practice myself) It is called “Pin stacking”, but when done in KiCad, all except one of the stacked pins are usually set to invisible. (It is used often for microcontrollers). If you load any symbol in the symbol editor, then you can take it apart to see how it’s made, and/or make any changes you like.

[jmk]

I looked at the symbol in Snap. It doesn’t look much better on their site.

You will have to modify that symbol after you have imported it to your Kicad library, as Paul suggests.

[vizier87]

Hi Paul. Many many thanks for the reply. You’re right, I am not familiar with making my own parts yet. Will get right into it.

What you said makes sense. I was just hoping that since I’m just starting out, it’ll be more “pick and place” especially for these well-known parts. But oh well… I’m gonna have to go through this again.

Been a while since I used Altium and the likes. Somehow this particular skill scratches that part of head and the chickens have come home to roost.

Again, thanks!