Rotating Footprint swaps the X & Y pad sizes in footprint editor

I am using ModEdit Version (5.1.1.10)-1 and have experienced a strange effect in the foot print editor (ModEdit). I had a footprint that was much like the new one I wanted to create but decided that, instead of having the package’s mid-line being horizontal, I decided to make it vertical. So I selected the whole thing and rotated it by 90 degrees. From that point on, the Y-Size corresponds to the horizontal size of the pads and the X-Size corresponds to the vertical size of the pads. It is as though it still knows that the original was rotated relative to what it is now. So now it is a bit confusing when I make a new foot-print and have to swap axes in my head when editing the pad sizes. Although the X&Y sizes are swapped, the X&Y positions are not swapped and they work as expected.

Wow, didn’t know what you meant by ModEdit . . . so its the Footprint editor of KiCad V5.x.x I’m not an early adopter but even I haven’t used V5 for some time.

Is there a good reason why you can’t upgrade to V6 or even V7 ?

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Last time I upgraded it made all of the many many hours I spent making symbols and footprints obsolete. It took me many days of work to recreate them all and the work is still not done. I’d really hate to go through that again.

RaptorUK: Run the footprint editor and it will identify itself as ModEdit.

Kicad 7.0.6 still works the same way.

I don’t remember 5.1.10, but this is the pad properties in 7.0.6. The pad is illustrated to avoid the users confusion. The pad is from a 90 deg. rotated symbol (note the pad dimensions).

To change the X & Y dimensions you have to rotate each pad, therefore rebuilding the whole symbol vertically (in your case) rather than rotating the existing symbol.

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Good to know jmk. Thanks for the post.

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Just FYI – in the future it will be possible to bulk edit pads in the footprint editor:

You can change orientation, sizeX and sizeY for all selected pads at once. A good reason to update to v8 when it will be ready :slight_smile:

So, if you need to rotate a library footprint and feel need to fix the pads, it will be a bit more easier than changing one by one, if there are many identical pads.

The ultimate solution would be a python script.

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