I’m creating a single sided board with through hole components on top side and surface mount on the bottom (copper) side. Kicad seems to be putting all the SM components on the top side. I tried changing setting in the footprint to bottom side, but they still show up on top layer. I have only placed the components so far, and don’t want to start routing traces until I get this figured out. I find the layers in Kicad to be confusing. Did I miss something obvious ? This design will be processed by myself, so I’m not concerned with what boardhouses may or may not do.
Maybe workflow might be easier if you let the top side be the copper layer and flip the THT components to the bottom side? Since you’re doing it yourself, just ignore the THT pads on the bottom side.
Lower left. Seems strange that you would have to specify each one. Might be easy to change with a script though.
Thanks, I’ll try that. That makes sense, as the end result only needs to be a print of the copper traces to laser printer for toner transfer. Looks like the software has the ability to mirror layers if necessary.
Thanks hermit. That’s the setting I tried changing before. I agree, seems like there should be a global setting somewhere.
It’s easy enough to Flip footprints with F or the context menu command. You can add them all first, select all and flip then.
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And one can use block select in combination with the flip operation to flip multiple footprints with one command.
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Thanks for all the great help. I was able to “flip” all the SM components to the bottom layer and did a print preview of the back copper layer. Everything looks good!
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