Wasn’t this kind of problem related to EEschema/PCBnew not being able (yet) to reallocate pins backwards?
I’m 100% sure we discussed this some time ago and all wanted that feature, but had to accept that EEschema needs a lot of work to be able to do this.
Hm, anything past, say, 24 pins will (unless you’re superhuman or a detail loving nerd) cause vias/crossings of wires around/underneath it, no matter what you want.
That’s why anyone doing anything else than small hobby projects starts with a 4 layer board to have less issues with this (less time spent fiddling) and reap some EMI-counter fruits at the same time.
TL;DR:
you have a personal niche-issue. Sorry.
PS: I do draw all my symbols and footprints myself - how I want them
Yeah, the majority of my symbols and footprints are modified from somebody elses’s work, and a few are drafted from scratch. I have done about 15 - 20 microcontroller projects, and most of them had a symbol drafted specifically for that project.
My schematics are the primary method of communicating my design intent to both myself and others. I tend to group pins by their function in the overall design. For example. grouping pins together could be my way of saying, “These pins here - these pins are the multiplexed input from the six front-panel control buttons. The two on top come from one port on the uC, and the three on the bottom from another port. That doesn’t matter - the important thing to understand is that they provide an interface to the keypad.” In the future I may change my mind about that pin assignment, if the board layout wraps too many traces through too many twists and turns, or the firmware burns too many machine cycles switching register banks, but for design purposes I’ll still think of those pins as the “keypad interface pins”, rather than “pins 27 through 31 on the microcontroller package”.
Nah, I’ve done 28 pin 2 sided no vias, but you do have to be detail oriented, no need for name calling though Would have been 1 sided with a single jumper but they weren’t any cheaper. And of course the first step was to make custom symbols with the pins in the right relative location and take advantage of every component bridge.
I actually like autorouting, but if you do a hackjob on the wiring, because of random pin locations on the symbols, the autorouter can only do so much.
Is there a glorified sharpie2gerber program somewhere? This thing has too much I don’t want, and among the fastest and the loudest my use case doesn’t matter anyway, and isn’t reason enough to have some sort of standard pin arrangement guidelines (and it has plenty of other issues, got better uses for cognitive load).
The atmel lib in general is quite bad. I think the best option (for the official lib at least) would be to shorten the pin names by removing the information about alternative functions. At least until we get the new lib file format that supports multiple pin names for one pin.
re: determined to not liking kicad, no it is just you
re: grouping by function, here is a concept, try colored wires and don’t screw up the position of the pins, that way you don’t hack up the wiring and you can see the function wherever it leads!
Grouping by Function is a good idea to improve readability of your Schemtaic and to provide clear Documentation. But it is your job as a designer to bind a fuction to a Pin, it is your job to sort it into the right Group and to get the Symbol right, which is, by the way, no big deal at all. This all is your job because none besides the designer(s) could possibly know this.
Coloring any net is a horribel idea. It distracts when viewing and aggravates the general readabillity!
The way it is at the moment is one of the easiest and simpelest implementations i have seen so far and you will not find any tool for pcb designing that does what you want because it is simply a bad idea.
You have clearly no idea of what you are talking about or simply are not able or willing to learn the functions of KiCAD to serve your purpose even worse you are offending people trying to help you.
you are trying to put a square peg in a round hole here. And telling me what “my job is”, which is basically bobc’s approach is just a cop out, I wear ALL the hats on these sort of projects, from proof of concept, simulation, programming, parts selection, wiring, and pcb readiness. There is no amount of rationalization that can justify doing a hack job on the wiring though in this case, sorry but kicad seems rather entrenched with its own cultural inheritance and one size fits all mentality. And I have used colored wires in diagrams to excellent effect, thank you very little.
really you are saying the guy designing the schematic should put zero thought into the pin physical locations, and I don’t buy it. That is just too much “top down” mentality, I don’t really see schematic and pcb creation as entirely separate events as after doing sufficient simulations and combing over datasheets, I already have plenty of chunks of schematic to crib from and am ready to make a PCB.
This is beginning to sound like spam to me. Purporting the entire industry has it wrong and that the schematic should represent the PCB layout is just absurd. While I didn’t want to say it, I agree with @Detzi.
He’s certainly not here to ask for any help or willing to consider anyone else’s opinion. Despite what he says I honestly feel his experience is minimal.
Would have been 1 sided with a single jumper but they weren’t any cheaper. And of course the first step was to make custom symbols with the pins in the right relative location and take advantage of every component bridge.
