Unable to get Eschema wire connections to line up to converted Altium Design

I hate posting like this but I’m out of luck on searches to find an answer after hours of searching.

Having a DEVIL of a time getting wire or component endpoints to match with new wires.
I think it is some silly major small offset in the grid or something so I need to find the place (if it exists) where KiCad will just snap to an EXISTING wire or component endpoint even if it is some major small floating point errror aways from an actual current grid point.

kicad Eschema 4.0.0-rc1-stable (yes a little out of date but I am rather scared (and scared) by chasing the top of tree versions so I am Leary of ‘why don’t you just update’ and an answer to this post and seek some option I have just not found yet please)

I believe this old feature request is what I am discussing:

Details:
I have done around 6 boards in KiCad from scratch and this problem seems to not happen much at all, perhaps because I keep the same grid. Now I converted an Altium design using Altium2kicad and I think the ‘exact’ endpoints for each connection or the grid offset in Eschema or SOMETHING is just a tiny bit off and leads to this issue.

There must be some ‘magic’ place that I can specify that if I am within 10mills of a connection like an end of an existing wire or component that i can make KiCad ‘snap to’ this existing connection. Maybe it is some global option not seen in grid preferences?

I am having a DEVIL of frustration in a port of an Altium design over to KiCad in just connecting to wires. I have tried a large number of combinations of reset of grid but even though the ends of an existing wire or component are as close as I can possibly make them the darn things don’t look like they connect.

I am also sure this is up there on the top 5 anoying things with Kicad AND that is is some really simple setting but I am out of gas on finding a solution.

You can specify grid granularity of 1.0 mil in the “Preferences” > “Schematic Editor Options” > “Display” menu, but I think you have already tried that. The schematic symbols in the KiCAD library are supposed to be drawn on a 50-mil grid, so if the symbols from your Altium project were drawn to some other grid you’ll be fighting the mismatched grids as long as you use the Altium symbols. The only solution I can suggest is to re-draft the symbols in KiCAD.

It’s just a guess, but you may be fighting an incompatibility between metric and inch units. Try setting up your page size in one of the metric sizes (say, A3) and select “mm” units.

Dale

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As best I can tell, your fears are unfounded as long as you are running anything in the 4.0.X “stable release” series. (The Nightly Builds are another story . . . ) The differences between 4.0.0 and 4.0.6 (the most recent release) are all bug fixes. They seem to be rather obscure bugs, but bugs nevertheless, so updating to 4.0.6 may be in your best interest. I don’t think 4.0.6 will fix the problem you are presenting here.

Dale

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EEschema can’t snap to pins/tracks like PCBnew can.

You have to have everything ‘on the same grid’ to make it work, with the official KiCAD symbols adhering to 50mils grid.

Maybe in the future this will be possible, but we’re talking years here.

If it is a question of the positions just being shifted, then it would be feasible to process the files with a script to align the coordinates. There is a commit to Altium2kicad which says “Fixed 50 mil alignment” so maybe that didn’t work, that would be the best place to fix the problem, but my Perl skills are weak.

If the Altium schematic uses a non-imperial grid, e.g. 2mm, then the task might be impossible to do without some complex scaling.

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Thank you for your prompt posts. Of course it is not at all the answers I would have hoped for it is a confirmation of a real issue and i will stop going insane searching for a solution. It seems a fallout of the conversion combined with likely non imperial grid used for the Altium schematic. Thanks again and take care. I’ll likely re-enter the schematic in KiCad. Take Care and Thanks. Mark