Schematic Grid Adjustments

Schematic
1

My Eeschema is currently using a pretty small grid for some unknown reason. So I am struggling with the mouse to connect things. Right now, it is acting more like Gimp and less as a CAD tool. Is this a new behavior or do I have some not-good, maybe custom, settings?

Where do I go to change these grid settings? What are the default values?
I am looking this Preferences > Preferences > Display Options but

Also, the Reset to Defaults button is greyed out.
And I hope that, when it works, it resets only the current view and not everything.

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Application: KiCad Schematic Editor

Version: 6.0.2-378541a8eb~116~ubuntu21.10.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.0.5
	libcurl/7.74.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1l zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.9 libidn2/2.3.1 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.3.0) libssh/0.9.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.43.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux 5.13.0-30-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, ubuntu, x11

Build Info:
	Date: Feb 11 2022 08:12:32
	wxWidgets: 3.0.5 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.74.0
	OCC: 7.5.2
	Curl: 7.74.0
	ngspice: 35
	Compiler: GCC 11.2.0 with C++ ABI 1016

Build settings:
	KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
	KICAD_SPICE=ON
2

The quick option is to right click on blank space and select “grid”.

Also there is grid settings button over on the left side menu.
image

Right click on that and select grid properties. Hey I just learned something…

Are you using 6.X? Help>About>Copy version info and post it in your response.

3

Sorry, forgot to add the version. Yes. It is Kicad 6.0.2

4

A the toolbar Grid button is already enabled. But this right-click menu is the thing I was looking for. It looks it is a bit hidden right?

5

@BobZ what is the default grid for you? Here it was 0.05 mm

6

Now the whole project is out of the grid. Do you now a quick fix for that?

7

A 0.05 inch (not mm) grid is strongly encouraged. The entire KiCad symbol library is designed to that grid, so if you use a different grid you won’t be able to connect to any of the included symbols.

To move stuff back on to your grid, select it and right click → align elements to grid. You could select all (ctrl+A) and then do the alignment. It should work without much pain.

8

Yes that is what I use 90% of the time; for connecting schematics. I do not know what is “default” but that is probably it. I use finer grids for moving text such as reference designations and component values. In absolute terms, mm and inches are meaningless with schematic symbols, but they do have a relationship relative to each other. IMHO we could eliminate both inches and mm in the schematic and just have “units” or “widgets” or something…

1 Like
9

Awesome. Thanks guys!

I may have changed this sometime in the past to tweak something and may have forgotten.

10

Cannot agree more. Maybe in layout is important to have both (in the same view). But in the schematic, I am not so sure.

11

Yes when we Americans started making integrated circuits, the units were decimal inches. But now with semiconductor packages in both inches and mm we need both. But for schematic diagrams…well it all depends on zoom scaling, right?

12

I always use the 0.05" grid for schematics and if I need to move text or graphical items more precisely I hold down the ctrl key whilst moving which disables the grid snap.

5 Likes
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