Duplicate and rotate this shape to close the ring. Now add a SMD rectangular pad, which will be the “anchor” for the custom pad, and form the “tab” shape on the right of the footprint:
Once you are happy with the geometry, and the anchor pad is overlapping (touching) the other shapes that make up the pad, Press Ctrl-E twice with the anchor pad selected. This will enter and exit Custom Pad Edit mode. When you exit this mode, all shapes that touch the selected anchor pad will be made part of it as a custom-shape pad:
A simpler and quicker way is to combine a graphical circle and a pad to make a custom pad.
You still have to combine an SMT pad with the graphical circle in the same way as in step 4 of craftyjon’s tutorial, but you can skip the creation of a half circle, polygon and rotation.
On F.Cu draw a random circle:
Edit the properties of the circle. (Probably) set the origin to (0, 0) and set the radius and line width according to the requirements of the pad:
Add an SMT pad, make sure it overlaps with the graphics, then depress [Ctrl + e] twice to enter and exit the pad edit mode so the graphics becomes part of the pad.
This method (or very similar) is also used in several footprints in KiCad’s default libraries. For example Mounting_Wuerth / Mounting_Wuerth_WA-SMSI-4.5mm_H2mm_9774020482. You can load this footprint in the footprint editor to examine what it’s made of. These Wuerth footprints have an NPTH in the center. The complex pad is needed here because KiCad has a limitation that the attachment point is in the center of the pad, and you can’t route inside of an NPTH. The Wuerth footprints also have a nice feature in which 4 aperture pads are used for solder mask, while keeping the center hole of the pad covered by the solder stencil. It also has some extra pads with the same pad number, this gives you options to which side to connect a PCB track. When pulling the parts of the Wuerth footprint apart, their constituents look like:
The tutorial claims to be for annular (ring-shaped) SMD pads
But whatever the shape, the same trick of combining (one or more) graphical shapes with an SMT pad to create the pad properties (attachment point, layers, etc) is the important part. The graphics can be any shape you can draw or import in KiCad. Below I imported Open Source Hardware Logo as an SVG file and created some pads out of the letters:
By default, KiCad places the pad number in the center, and makes it as big as will fit inside the pad. This can be changed too. To do this:
Go into the Pad Edit Mode with [Ctrl + e]
Draw a graphical rectangle (I think it has to be on F.Cu, the same layer as the copper of the pad).
Activate the “Number Box” checkbox in the properties manager. Note: the pad number is only put inside the number box after Pad Edit Mode is exited.
For weird stuff, like a different shaped, but symmetrical, arrow head, for a transistor emitter symbol (not on x or y axis), because Symbol/Schema. do not have rotational angle settings.
Draw half the arrow head, then: Duplicate > Mirror > Several Rotates > Move.
