Symbol I can't get rid of on PCB

[Al_J]

hello.

Just as an FYI, I have spent the last 1.5 hours trying to figure this out, for real.
I don’t want to seem like I’m being lazy and not researching things on my own.

My question is simple, what is the mark on the grid (I circled in blue)?
I was doing some measuring on the PCB, moving stuff around, and it appeared at some point. Now I can’t get rid of it!
What does it mean? How do I remove it?
Please help, making me nuts!

thx so much.

EDIT: also the one here, next to the hole:

[paulvdh]

It is the origin of the grid. PCB Editor / Place / Grid Origin, also movable with shorcut key S.

[straubm]

Setting the coordinates in the grid properties to 0/0 makes the mark disappear

[paulvdh]

And Resetting the grid origin is done with PCB Editor / View / Grid Properties.

[straubm]

or RMB (right mouse button) on the grid symbol

[paulvdh]

@straubm

or RMB (right mouse button)

I only tried a long click, but that does not work.
I would be nice if it had a direct Reset Grid Origin option right under the Grid Properties … menu:

But with 1450 open issues on gitlab I’m not opening an issue for such a trivial thing.

[straubm]

There’s a hotkey, ‘Z’, for resetting the grid origin.

[paulvdh]

… and in PCB Editor / Preferences / Preferences / Hotkeys you get an overview of all hotkeys, rename them, and also search through them.
Here the result for a search for “grid”:

@straubm I give up and have nothing more to add. If you have anything to add you win

[straubm]

Well …
Oh: best practice for setting the grid origin is 127/127mm or 5000/5000 mils. Serves both systems well.

But ok: you win

[Al_J]

Thanks for the help. Was driving me crazy. Guess I accidentally hit the hot key.
Now I have to look up grid origin and figure that out, haha.

[Al_J]

Now I have the same thing with the drill origin. (the same circle and X, but in RED). How can I set that back to default?

[paulvdh]

There are a lot less options for that one. It does not have it’s own dialog, nor does it have direct shortcuts.
A little bit of experimentation showed me what it does do. You can snap it to objects, and you can place it on the grid. Therefore, to get it back to the origin point you can either first reset the grid origin, or create a snap point at (0, 0) (for example draw a line, then edit it’s properties and set the start point), then zoom in at the north west corner of the drawing screen and use PCB Editor / Place / Drill/Place File Origin menu and click on (0, 0) which is now either a grid or a snap point. If you’ve done this correctly, the red cross disappears.

You can also get to this function from the button bar on the right side of the screen:

There is also a small black triangle in the lower right corner of that icon. Icons with that triangle have a “fold out” function if you use a long click on it.

The trick to first move the grid origin is a good trick to remember. KiCad’s snap functions are sometimes a bit hard to interpret, and some things are limited to some layers, or only select snap points on the currently active layer. The grid origin however, snaps to almost anything and can therefore be (ab)used to create a snap point almost anywhere. It is always a fall-back method if more direct approaches do not work.

Snapping is also influenced by PCB Editor / Preferences / Preferences / PCB Editor / Editing Options / Magnetic Points / Snap to …

[eelik]

@paulvdh

There are a lot less options for that one. It does not have it’s own dialog, nor does it have direct shortcuts.

If you want tongue in cheeck…

Open Tools → Scripting Console.

Copy the next text block, go over the Shell. Open context menu → Paste and Run.

import pcbnew
ds = pcbnew.GetBoard().GetDesignSettings()
ds.SetAuxOrigin(pcbnew.wxPoint(pcbnew.FromMM(100), pcbnew.FromMM(100) )) # replace 100,100 with wanted x/y coordinates in mm, use FromMil if needed. Set to 0,0 to reset and get rid of the visible marker.
pcbnew.Refresh()
print(pcbnew.ToMM(ds.GetAuxOrigin().x), pcbnew.ToMM(ds.GetAuxOrigin().y))

[straubm]

…or simply navigate to 0/0 (coarse grid helps) and place the marker there. Makes it disappear as well.

[jmk]

such a nice and easy solution… should place it in FAQ