if others find this thread in the future:
look also at the eeschema-online help, section library/power symbols.
https://docs.kicad.org/5.1/en/eeschema/eeschema.html#power-symbols
The two important steps for modifying power symbols (change Pin name and symbol value)
are mentioned.
Good reference, thank you.
I have just updated all the Power Ports used on my schematic, updated my PCB netlist from the schematic and everything is making a lot more sense now!
== And this forum software probably needs some extra *&^%$#@! to satisfy some arbitrary 20 character limit.
I also fell into this trap when I was designing my first KiCad PCB. Then I supposed that the same technik that was used for hidden power pins in some (old TTL) libraries was used to design power symbols. If you think that way it is obvious that you should not change the AND gate name but its power pin name.
It’s actually due to the trick used to make power symbols global, not a user interface thing per se. Perhaps a future version of KiCad should show a warning if one tries to edit the text, explaining that this is not sufficient to make a new power symbol.
I hit this trap when I realiased that in my design the HC TTL chips would work from 2V to 6V so the symbol +5V was a misnomer. Being a sticker for detail, I edited the power symbol. After the edit I saw that the net name was still +5V and vaguely remembered the background. So I had to replace all the +5V symbols on the schematic with VCC.
Nope.
The proper way to handle it is to just have an editable field, and have that work as expected.
It does not have to be complicated. A “new implementation” of a power symbol could just be a global label with some fancy extra graphics. In fact, I have resorted to using global labels but rotated 90 degrees instead of power symbols in a few schematics.
Well it’s up to the devs how they want to handle this, whether to continue this “trick” or devise a new implementation. It’s inevitable that any sufficiently complex piece of technology will have traps somewhere.
I completely agree with you here. Having to use OrCAD, Eagle, Altium… Power symbols are simple… you change the name and the net name changes, no need to make a new symbol with a hidden name that has to be changed as well. Being a Hardware guy this seems like a simple thing to do in SW, but it appears not.
As can be seen in the issue linked to by Paul, it was waiting for the file format change and then not implemented because of the normal lack of manpower. Now when the new file format has settled I hope they fix this. I don’t see this current implementation a compromise or a quirk which we have to have, it’s just totally unnecessary.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.