Hi forum,
I’m a (relatively) new user; started and am still using version 5.0 (the initial 5.0 release).
Executive summary of my post: filled zones: absolutely awesome feature; but implementation/functionality seems buggy / quirky / incomplete. (and when I say “seems”, of course the question is: am I missing something and/or incorrectly using the functionality?)
I’m trying to create filled zones with “arbitrary” shapes (for example, see my earlier question about routing traces, where in the end I was told that filled zones are the right tool for that task).
Some of the problems I’m finding:
- UNDO does not work for individual corners — if I click, and then (maybe right away, maybe two corners later) I want to undo that corner, Ctrl-Z won’t have any effect.
- The equivalent of the
/
key when routing traces (the “change posture”) does not work here (well, I can tell that the/
key does not work — not sure if there is a command to change posture while defining the zone’s edge). For example, in this screen capture (with the zone settings specifying H,V, and 45 degrees only):
I want that “rounded” corner on the right, and I need to continue the vertical edge on the right till further down; however, the thing does this when I keep going down: [[ edit, to clarify why this is a problem: I know that I can click first while the software has not changed theposture — however, say that I need the right edge perfectly aligned with some other footprint that is way down. If I click and I was too far right, then I’m toast, since I cannot undo; and if I’m close, well, it doesn’t matter because as I then move down, the software continues to do the same thing as the figure below ]]
-
Also related to / overlapping with the previous item: editing a zone once done is a bit of a nightmare. Even though the zone’s settings specify “only H,V, and 45”, that constraint seems to be lost when we grab the polygon’s vertices (what the KiCAD pop-up menu calls “corners”). Guaranteeing vertical (or horizontal) lines is challenging, as the coordinates of those points cannot be edited individually.
-
As an alternative (rather a “hack”), I figure that the outer edge could be defined with a trace (easy, given the router’s ability/flexibility and the interactive drag to “force it” to make the shapes I want), and then create a zone that overlaps with the traces. It doesn’t seem to always work. For example, see this screen capture after creating a zone for net
+3.3V
:
- [[ edit – additional issue/wishlist item: It would be also great if the corners (the polygon vertices) could also be handled through the Align/Distribute menu — the “distribute” part not so much, but then selecting several corners and doing “align to left / right / top / bottom” would be useful, I believe ]]
Any comments on the above? More in general, any tips or pointers / tutorials on how to effectively work with filled zones?
Thanks,
Cal-linux