Tutorial - Making A PCB-Footprint From A Kicad PCB - Using The Image-Converter

First, I don’t really have the patience to sit through a 5 minute video, and repeatedly watch a mouse cursor slowly scrolling through menu’s. Some people may prefer video tutorials, but not me.

Second, I don’t really call it a footprint if it does not have any real pads (Either THT or SMT). How do you make those?

Third, KiCad is vector based. Then making a screenshot to turn it into pixels and the image converter to turn it into vectors again is a very convoluted way of doing things. You loose resolution at least, and you have to find a way to get any sense of scale back.

I do not have much experience with the image converter. I don’t really use it myself. From the little I know, it is usable to convert logo’s and such into symbols or footprints, and it can be used when there is really no other option.

I guess this video was motivated my remark of:

My starting point for making that remark was having something in mind like: Project Manager / File / New Project from Template / Arduino Mega Shield, and then creating a footprint from that. It has got 7 connectors (which all have numbers 1 though 8). Renumbering the pads in the footprint editor would be an easy task. The problematic part is that I don’t know of any direct way to make a footprint from this while preserving all pad locations, and therefore I still stand with that remark I made.

If the goal is to make some kind of daughter-board (Either with THT pads, SMT pads with castellations or other) then the best way to make it is probably:

  1. Make a footprint for the daughter-board.
  2. Use that footprint both for creating the daughter-board itself, and for using the daughter-board in a bigger project.