Rename symbols without footprints moving/reseting?

[steeley]

I need to rename some resistor designators, but when I do this in the schematic and then go to update the pcb the resistors vanish and I have put them all in place again. Is there a way to do this simple operation?
KICAD 8.04 osx
thanks

[Piotr]

While updating PCB from schematic let KiCad use symbol UIDs and not reference numbers to identify symbols. I don’t have KiCad here to check it but it is first of options.

[paulvdh]

Piotr is right but his description is a bit unclear.
The Re-link footprint option should always be OFF for normal updates, and should only be used for special cases when synchronization between the schematic and the PCB is lost for some reason.

Alternatively, you can also change the RefDes in the PCB editor, and push the changes back to the schematic with PCB Editor / Tools / Update Schematic from PCB. There is also a “Geographical Reannotate” in the PCB editor. Footprint assignment and some other things can also be pushed back to the schematic:

Pushing back net names can create local labels on sheet pins. KiCad still has no support for Pins-swap and Gate-swap (lp:#593944) (#1950) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab even though the issue is open since 2007. This used to be a mandatory function in the days that PCB’s had many (100+) TTL IC’s, but it is still relevant today Some use cases:

• Still the old TTL.
• quad opamps and such.
• Re-assigning wiring to generic I/O pins of uC’s or connectors to optimize PCB layout.
• Same for FPGA’s (those have many reconfigurable pins!
• Simple resistors and capacitors, so you don’t have to rotate them 180 degrees half of the time.

[steeley]

thanks all - for some reason I missed the re-link footprint option. I always work from the schematic
never from the PCB so this option works fine.