Placing via in pad - snap to pad?

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I hand solder many of the boards I make, so it’s convenient to place vias in SMT pads. I know the the DFM folks will shout at me as this isn’t a great idea for commercial paste and reflow.

However even if I select the via grid to 0.01mm (0.39 mils), I can’t always position the via so it is centrally placed in the pad.

Would it be a “good idea” to have an option to “snap” vias in pads to the “centre” of the pad?

I realise I could add an even finer grid, and use that for vias, but that doesn’t feel the best way to handle this, especially as vias will already snap to the end of a trace.

Cheers, David

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KiCad V8.
While placing via when I approach any pad via jumps to its center. Without using snapping behavior modification keys I can’t position via at any other point in pad than its center.
It works that way even I have “Snap to pads” set to “When creating tracks” and not “Always”.

Correction.
It works that way when I approach pad from its side when there are no tracks. If I approach from track side I can position via inside pad along this track.

1 Like
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Hmmm that’s odd as vias I placed in pads didn’t (always) snap like that. (using 9.0.3 though that shouldn’t change anything). Snap to Pads is set to “When routing tracks”:

image

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It’s a very interesting approach.

What specific shape is it in?

If these are more useful than the footprints that are automatically created, would they be happier if they were provided automatically?

suffix: “_Pad{pad_x:.2f}x{pad_y:.2f}mm_HandSolder”

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I think this is just a bug/inconsistency in the via placer: Magnetic points: Snap via to object or snap object to via is not working (#18626) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab

A workaround is to place the via, then M move it into place.

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I get exactly the same result as @Piotr , including his “correction”. I’m running 9.0.4.
I don’t suffer the bug/inconsistency mentioned by johnbeard.

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Looks like another case of grid snaps being too aggressive - if your grid is much smaller than the pad it should already work as expected.

Should be better for 9.0.5. In the meantime, if this is a problem for anyone, Shift disables grid snaps but keeps object snaps as usual.