I am French and I use the French version of KiCad.
In my schematic (see photo 1), all pads are connected and have nets assigned. The nets also appear correctly in the PCB editor (photo 2). Moreover, in the pad and track properties, the nets are clearly visible (photos 3 and 4).
However, in the Equipotential Class view, nothing is displayed — the list stays empty (see photo 5).
The nets are definitely present and appear in other parts of KiCad (for example, in the net inspector and when checking pad-to-pad connections), but not in the Equipotential Class section.
I have watched many tutorials and tried multiple approaches, but I still can’t get the equipotential classes to show up.
Is there something special I need to do to make equipotential classes appear? Do I have to manually define them, or should they be automatically created from the nets?
I’m not sure what a “equipotential class” is, but if you’re talking about netclasses: You either have to assign them in the schematic or define rules to automatically derive them from classes
It will only destroy the circuit if they connect all pads that the ratsnest suggests based on the schematic. The current PCB is fine - because they ignore the ratsnest
Because you assigned the 5V net on both pads of the resistor, shorting it. You ignored that when routing the PCB, which makes it work. But your schematic has a short
At the moment you have only one netclass, Default. You don’t have to assign nets to Default. If KiCad doesn’t find a needed value for width, clearance etc. in some other assigned netclass, the value in Default is used. Assignment is useful only after you have more than one netclass.
adding to what @eelik said: While netclasses are nice and helpful, it is nothing you have to worry about for basic PCB designs. It is quite useful once your PCBs get loads of components on them
The label 5V doesn’t mean “5 volts” for KiCad. It’s just a name for the net. All texts in the schematic are only text, KiCad doesn’t interpret them as numerical values. For different kinds of net labels the same text means the same label → same net, even when without a visible connecting wire.
Because the same net name is used for two wires, KiCad connects them together. The upper one of course has actually smaller voltage, so it would be natural to rename that one to something else.
What are “Equipotential Classes”. Is it something new in V9 that I don’t know?
Equipotential suggest that it would be collection of nets having the same potential. Nets have the same potential when they are the same net or are connected with net-tie.
Indeed a translation issue…Equipotential (Equipotencial in spanish) is a physics term that refers to points with the same potential (voltage). It’s related to netclasses of course but this sounds weird…
In the Spanish translation netclasses are ‘Clases de red’ (at least in the v9.0.3) which is even stranger to me. Perhaps it is because of these things that I end up using the English version, despite being a Spanish user.
Regarding translations… (At least in Spanish and Catalan) Are these done automatically or by volunteers? This is the first time I’ve changed the settings to Spanish and I’m seeing some very strange things.
For example, ‘netclasses’ is translated as ‘clases de red’ (network classes), where ‘red’ makes no sense in this context. I think it should be ‘Clases de nodos’ (node classes).
Another oddity I see is the translation of ‘antialiasing’ to ‘antidentado’??? I think it should be (at least) ‘suavizado’.
The funniest thing is the translation of ‘ratsnet’ to ‘líneas aéreas’
