First off, please forgive me, but I’m going absolutely nuts here. I’ll admit right out, I’ve only been using KiCAD for around a week, so I’m still very new, but I’ve searched for hours and hours and can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. Here are the questions I have:
I am using KiCAD 7.0.10 on an Intel Mac.
Is there a way to eject from the “rat’s nest” and just do something that I know is right, regardless of what KiCAD thinks? For example…
Why does KiCAD think that I need to connect GND or Vcc pins (both created with the “power symbol tool”) all the way across the board to some random other GND or Vcc pad (typically as far away as possible) and requiring multiple trace-jumpers, and not let me tie to a much closer pad with the same ‘signal’? They’re not even directly connected on the schematic!
I get why I need to put my trace-jumping zero ohm resistors into the schematic for them to show up on the PCB, but G*d damn, does that workflow ever suck rocks. Am I missing something obvious here? I’ve seen people on the forums suggesting that people in this situation use “air jumpers” but I haven’t been able to find anything very informative about that feature. The ability to use zero ohm resistors and jumpers is very important to me because I’m limited to making single sided boards (for faster turnaround, not counting the time fighting with KiCad I guess).
Please do forgive me; The last time I did PCB design was ~25-30 years ago when we still mostly did stuff on a drafting table with a physical pencil and lithography, and etched everything with noxious chemicals in a barn outside the company. I want to come into the modern era, but I’ve been staring at this ‘rat’s nest’ for hours and not finding any way out (I’d say I’m roughly 75% of the way done laying out this board), but no matter how many back-and-forths I do between the schematic and the layout, nothing ever seems to change with these “far-reaching” nest lines, and KiCAD won’t let me tie anything BUT the nest source/dests. It results in some silly traces that would need to pass around NPTH holes to not guarantee a bridge, since I’m hand soldering this stuff at this stage.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Regards,
Ian
PS: I do have a multi-layer version of this board with vias and all that, but I’m really trying to consolidate it to a single layer board through the use of jumpers/zero-ohm-resistors. I have limited access to the CNC etching machine I’m going to be using (basically a pro machine that someone has offered to let me use “after hours.”)
Rats-net lines are your very best friend, and you should appreciate them. I’ve also done PCBs using Letraset etc. 40 years ago, with pencil routing on paper before laying out. THAT was a job for weeks!
You’ll see that they disappear one by one after you’ve routed the tracks. They only show you non-routed connections.
But doing one-layer tracks using 0-ohm resistors in KiCAD is indeed tedious. Jumping back and forth between PCB and Schematic editor is unfortunately necessary to place the 0-ohm resistors consistently between both.
I suspect you have schematic problems and the pads you think are connected really aren’t. See this FAQ on how to increase your level to be able to post a zip of your project which will save a lot of guessing, or wait for an admin to promote you.
BTW one trick for dealing with 1 Cu layer boards is to use an unused layer for jumper routing and then not generate that layer for fabrication. Haven’t tried it myself, no space or access to CNC and besides I can wait 2 weeks for all the advantages of factory made boards.
I don’t understand what is going on. It will be really the best if you will be able to post your project, or simplified project having the same issues.
Are you sure it is really what you should do?
I have never used CNC to make PCB. Factory made boards are much better and not very expensive.
Yeah, it’s more about turn around time. Once I have a viable design that fits into the tight space in the enclosure, I will order factory boards. In the distant past, I used home-brew PCBs to let me iterate twice a day if not more. These days, I guess I’m just shooting for traces that’re too small for the home-brew equipment I have. Just one example: [https://imgur.com/a/cooWm1G](https://…not even worth etching at all. And this was one of the best ones.)
I ordered a bunch of boards from JLC and they’re great, but they took ten days to get here. I guess I’m just spoiled by Amazon Prime.
As a child in 70s I was painting my tracks directly at PCB using for it pen refill with the ball removed and filled with paint (I used a syringe to suck up the paint).
If I need to check something I prefer to make it at prototype board to be able to iterate many times a day.
Dispelling all doubts I then need not to iterate when designing PCB.
But it of course depends on the circuit you design.
FWIW, this is the culmination of 4 or 5 different projects coming together into one. I’ve done each of the constituent projects out on breadboards, so this isn’t a “shot in the dark” but it is definitely quite a complicated layout for my amateur mind to snug into the CNC working space I have to cut the board (roughly 5.7" x 5.7", so not much.)