Smooth transition from large trace to small trace?

Is it possible to smoothly transition from a large trace size to a smaller trace size, say 1mm to 0.4mm in a cone/horn shape?

The simplest way to do this in KiCad is probably to add a small triangular (or trapezoidal) zone. Two corners would be on the edges of the fat track, while the third point is then on the narrow track. Trapezoidal is probably easier if the connection is asymmetric.

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Yeah that’s what I’ve been doing, just wondering if there was an easier/faster way to do it.

There is some “teardrop” extension (plugin?) in development for KiCad.
There have been scripts to do this too in earlier versions (KiCad V5.x) I do not know if those teardrop scripts only handle pad to track connections, or if they can also handle changes in track width.

Yet another method is to use a trapezoidal pad in a footprint. But this has the extra overhead of managing those footprints, and I’m not sure if that is any easier.

No, it’s a “native” implementation.

It’s implemented using zones. It’s not perfect yet, as you can see (e.g. some rounded teardrops are “wrong way”) and it’s behind advanced config flag because it’s not ready to receive bug reports. I changed some track width just to show it works for tracks, too.

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Waauw, looks good.

I don’t have KiCad V42.99 yet though.
In the mean time, maybe one of those older scripts can be beat into submission:

https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=kicad+teardrop+script

6.99, you mean. :slight_smile:

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Using Kicad 5.1.12

You can make a Footprint as I have done (and, as @paulvdh indicated). Screenshot below shows it as two pads on a trace but, you get the Idea…

And, if not wanting to bother managing the footprint in a dedicated/linked-up folder, you can simply put the footprint where you want and load it from there… (Change Footprints> search and load it from the pop-up panel

Which is partially based on the teardrop plugin (which hasn’t made it into PCM yet because of an outstanding bug).

If recall correctly, @Niluje (the author of teardrop plugin) is happy not to be coding this plugin for v7+ versions of KiCad :slightly_smiling_face:, seen his post somewhere with this opinion.

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There was a “Taper” plugin at one time, this is needed in RF circuits for impedance matching

I also completely forgot about the “RF Toolbar” in KiCad V5.
In KiCad V6 this appears to have been moved / integrated to the menu: PCB Editor / Place / Add Microwave Shape.

I’ve experimented a few minutes with this, and apparently it generates ad-hoc footprints based on some parameters. The “muwave_arcstub” may be abusable in this case.

I do confirm !
I don’t have time anymore to maintain this plugin.

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