I laid out a board last week and noticed that often when I tied in to an existing trace, the existing trace would shift slightly and no longer be exactly horizontal, vertical, or at a 45 degree angle.
I have selected Preferences/Legacy Toolset Routing Options/Limit tracks to H, V, and 45 degrees.
I’m not using the Legacy Toolset, so any suggestions on how to prevent this would be appreciated!
-Hunter
Thanks! Is there any known workaround?
-Hunter
Yes, a really ugly workaround: upgrade to the latest stable version 5.1.5 where it has been fixed.
I thought this bug was introduced with 5.1.5 and will be fixed with 5.1.6.
Oops, you may be right.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that. I am currently using 5.1.5 so it must be that it is going to be fixed in 5.1.6.
-Hunter
You can fairly safely use a 5.1.x branch Nightly build, back up your work first, but this branch is rarely dangerous
If available for the used platform (I think it only exists for windows)
There is an equivalent Ubuntu PPA available that track 5.1.x application changes, but not libraries
Thanks for the help! I switched to a nightly build and it is working a lot better. However, it also seems to crash more often. I assume that this is something I’ll just have to deal with.
-Hunter
Exactly which nightly?
I’m on Pre-5.1.6 (currently dated 11.04) and it’s stable for me for daily work.
If you’re on Pre-6.0 (5.99), it’s a different beast and - as they say, “dragons ahead”.
Ok, that explains it. I was on 5.99.
Where do I find Pre-5.1.6?
I see that on this page https://kicad.org/download/windows/ there are testing builds and nightly builds. I had just grabbed the most recent nightly build, should I have grabbed one of the testing builds instead?
-Hunter
Definitely Testing.
Nightlies do have specific disclaimer.
Consider Testing as bugfixes (unverified), and “Nightly development” as new, experimental features.
Grab testing from here:
https://kicad-downloads.s3.cern.ch/index.html?prefix=windows/testing/5.1/
Gotcha, I just finished reading where you answered this question elsewhere. Thanks!
I’m going to install kicad-5.1-jenkins-614-x86_64 now. Can you explain what the jenkins-614 part of the name refers to? Does anything in this name indicate that it is Pre-5.1.6?
-Hunter
“jenkins” is the name of the server software which builds the testing builds, or something like that. The number is growing build by build. There’s nothing in the package name indicating whether it’s pre-5.1.6, pre-5.1.7 or something else pre-. The application itself has the proper versions string, though, after it has been installed and you use it - the package name is only the installer package file name.
“Pre-5.1.6” is the unofficial name for the builds that intend to be 5.1.6 when will be released.
Currently Kicad developers are maintaining two builds: 5.1.5 with fixes for important bugs (this is the “Pre-5.1.6”) and the Super-Future-Kicad with tons of magic new features.
Jenkins is just a name for automatic builds system.
Thanks! I’ve got pre-5.1.6 installed and working now. The only problem is that I did a fair amount of PCB layout using the 5.99 nightly and now when I try to open the board with pre-5.1.6 I get the error:
I did back up everything before moving to the nightly, so worst case I’ll loose a day or two of work I did with the nightly build.
Or maybe I’ll just finish this PCB with the 5.99 build, since it is almost done. Hmm… not sure what is best in this case.
