New-ish user! Really impressed by the software and many thanks to this forum for answering so many of my questions already.
I have a question about how kiCAD denotes connections between pours and through-hole connectors…
I am making a power distribution PCB with 2 planes, one V+ (Purple) and one GND (Green).
In the attached screenshot, I have selected the GND plane. I noticed that pin#3 of the connector doesn’t appear connected to the pour, although it does have a green dot on it (this dot is only visible if the GND plane is selected). Is pin#3 actually connected to the GND pour?
Not that pin#2 shows the same behavior relative to the V+ (Purple) pour. Note the rat’s-nest connection between pins#1 & #2, which makes me believe pin#2 is not connected to anything. If I select the +V pour (Purple), a purple dot appears on pin 2, though it still appears to be disconnected.
Elsewhere on the board I am using a JST_XH_B02B-XH-A_02x2.50mm_Straight (also 4-pin, through-hole with 2 pins V+ and 2 pins GND. On that connector it’s clearly shown that all 4 pins are connected to their respective planes/pours.
The connector footprint is Molex_PicoBlade_53047-0210_02x1.25mm_Straight from Connectors.pretty. It is a through-hole mount connector.
kiCAD 5.0
My guesses are:
-this is just how kiCAD notates connections, and it’s fine.
-there is a problem with the footprint
-there is a magic button somewhere that can fix this.
I guess is all about clearances. Maybe the distance between pins is shorter than the zone clearance. Play around with those values, both in zones and the global clearance. I can’t access the application right now so I can’t tell you the exact place to find those settings.
My guess (and that’s all it is) is that the spokes are too thick for the software to route the connection without violating DRC with the adjacent pin. Try reducing the spoke width and see if the connections appear.
I switched off the thermal relief (went to solid) and sure enough the pour connected to all the relevant pins. I switched thermal relief back on and started playing with the Copper Zone Properties of the V+ pour.
-I reduced the Spoke Width down to the Minimum Width 2.54mm (Spoke Width must be > Min Width) with no change.
-I reduced the Clearance to .3mm which caused the missing spokes to appear (and also caused V+ pour to look very close to the GND pins!).
It seems the missing spokes are due to width/clearance settings as you suggested. To be honest I just copied my settings from other users’ videos, so I will do some more experimentation and research on minimum settings to see what I can work with.
I think it may be related to the zone setting specific to through hole thermal reliefs. But, it also appears that square pads and round pads get treated different; so I’m also uncertain at the moment.
