Thanks for the explanation
if i label a wire just for the sake of giving it a net name, do i assume i only need to do so at one end of the wire no matter how many components this wire goes to? I’m not that comfortable letting kicad decide netnames and would like to use my own (maybe copy from eagle).
Yes, just put a label anywhere on the wire.
A few design engineers will assign a meaningful label to every net on a schematic. Then, when laying out the board they only need to hover the cursor over a trace to discover that it is, e.g., “RAM_Addr3” or “Bandlimited_Audio” or “Ext_Current_Sense+” or some other significant node in the schematic. The mnemonics can be VERY helpful when laying out a board, as well as debugging or troubleshooting a board after assembly. These names are also persistent. If you modify a schematic and create a new netlist using KiCAD’s assigned net names, you may discover that “Net-(D2-Pad1)” has been renamed to something else, such as “Net-(C5-Pad2)”.
On the other hand . . . creating unique, meaningful, net names for every net in a design takes some time. Displaying all of the labels creates visual clutter on the schematic. And, a poorly aimed keystroke can create a connection between nets that should NOT be connected.
Dale
I allready know where to place each component and where the tracks should go
the eagle schematic my work is based on had net names but about half of them did not go through the import process.
i have not fixed that and also exported all schematic symbols in to individual libs so i only have to open one to fix one… and the chance i screw things up become less 
about clutter, most of those labels are so small that they only show as fly poop and i only placed them where they made sense… at each component pin and at junctions… i dont have to zoom out a lot before i cant see them
oh yes… i want to add 3d shapes while i’m at it
for the resistors i did a test with the 3d shapes that comes with kicad…
i read up on things and one thing i dont get is if kicad will render color rings on resistors or not?
and when i get to the ic’s can i add 2 shapes so it looks like they are in a socket?
If the 3D model has colors, yes. But it will not calculate the colors based on the resistor value.
Look: I created a new kicad3Dmodels library
Yes. Socket and chip models overlap seamlessly
yeah i came across that lib but i need to read the install instructions again as i’m a kind of a dummie and i have only been using kicad for a few weeks
i gave up on that lib first time arround, eyecandy is not that important before all tracks are done and general shapes are in place
i managed to get general shapes for the resistors and some of the axial capacitors, but getting to the IC’s it gets a bit strange… i add a socket for the first of the 40 pin ic’s but when i open the 3d viewer i get the ic
i googled a little and the only thing here on the forum that turned up was a lenghtly debate that ended up in someone saying dont use sockets… that does not help me as i want to use them
Well that might be because the socket footprint has the wrong 3d model assigned. (I checked a random socket footprint in the official lib and that one at least has the _socket suffix also in the 3d path. So i guess you have your socket footprint from some other place or i was lucky with the random footprint i checked.)
Remember that the official lib does not claim to be complete. We have what has been contributed. If something is missing it is not because we don’t want it but because nobody cared to contribute it in a way that we can accept it. (Contributions to the official library need to follow the kicad library convention. We prefer quality over quantity.)
i was looking in the DIP sockets folder that came with kicad
\Program Files\KiCad\share\kicad\modules\packages3d\Sockets_DIP.3dshapes
the one i looked at was DIP-40_600
hehehe
i just use what came with kicad 4.0.7, sorry for being a noop 
found a lib that works fine and has ic’s in a socket or standalone
i was to quick and did not preview the footprints before i saved them so when i got a 3d view of the board some where offset.
i corrected that and did run cvpcb (without changing anything)… recreated the netlist in schematic… read the netlist in pcbnew… but the 3d view does not update
i’m surely doing something wrong, but i have no clue what
i just rechecked… if i go to pcbnew and edit with footprint editor but click 3d view without touching anything the 3d view is not correct… but still if i click 3d view in pcbnew it does not update the 3d view…
picked another footprint and regenerated the netlist and then reread it in pcbnew and then change back to the footprint and reread netlist again made it work
now is there a quick way to change color of a 3d shape? i can use the same shape for about half of things but if it was easy i wanted to change the color to get a closer match of the org components
moved on to edit some of the ports
they all require milling and that is the problem i have now… as the dummie i am i look for a milling layer when i edit the pcb footprint, and then i googled and the best things is to use the edge cut layer
but that is grayed out
a screen shot: https://imgur.com/a/KF8iX
Yes sadly it is not possible to use the footprint editor to draw on the edge cuts layer. This issue is known but will sadly not be fixed until after the kicad 5 release (https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1251393)
Your only option is to draw on any layer and move the drawing to the edge cuts layer using a text editor. (I would suggest you use any layer that you do not use for anything else. This makes editing easier as you can then do a simple search/replace)
thanks for that… as i have made seperate footprints for almost everything it should not take long to edit the 3 parts needed
that worked and i’m down to 90 or so connections not done.
i have found out that like with everything commodore the schematic is not quite right so i will have to figure how to change it if needed to have it “sync” with the board. even thou the board i have in hand came from a repair place it was once working. it had a few cut tracks due to unskilled people working on it and all the holes plating had come loose, but good enough for a scanning and use as template. so in the end i trust the board more than the schematic.
i tried to make ground flood areas as that is used arround the edge of the board and under the video section.
i could draw the area fine but i tried to use keepout to stop the flood as there are some areas within the shape that is not to to be grounded. what is the correct way to do this?
