Update Board Componentes based on their Footprint names

[leoheck]

Is it possible to have something like this implemented?

I have old-existing boards where the
Re-link footprints to schematic symbols based on their Reference Designators
do not work at all.

Neither having this property Checked nor Un-Checked does anything.

Components always end up being duplicated and also lose their placement on the board.

How can I overcome this issue?

[paulvdh]

One way to fix it is to manually change the Reference Designator in either the schematic or on the PCB to match them with the other side. and then use the Re-link Footprints by RefDes option.

Another way is to delete all footprints from the PCB, then get new ones by updating from the schematic, and then snap the pads of the new footprints to the track ends which are still on the PCB. I did this in:

Reverse engineering KiCad project from Gerber files

2022-01-17 The goal of this reverse-engineering tutorial is to re-create a complete KiCad project from partial information assuming the only information available is a schematic in some readable, (but not EDA form, such as a .pdf or a .png picture), and a set of gerber files. The Gerber files will create a PCB with much PCB information missing, however, using this method is easier than re-designing a PCB from scratch, and can also be extended to any other program that creates Gerber files. …

and it’s quite doable. Gerber files do not know what a “footprint” is, so replacing the old graphics with real footprints is the quicest way to fix it that I know of.

But I am sort of curious of you your project got in to this synchronized state in the first place.

[leoheck]

@paulvdh

One way to fix it is to manually change the Reference Designator in either the schematic or on the PCB to match them with the other side. and then use the Re-link Footprints by RefDes option.

Oh god. This is exactly the idea I had some minutes ago. And I was feeling that this is going to work. Well, thanks for confirming. Most of my parts are already fixed.

[leoheck]

The issue I am facing now is that I have 3 instances of a hierarchical sheet. But I thought this would be easy!!

I fixed the first sheet… then I removed the other 2 instances.
Then I added them back by copying the first instance 2 times.

Then, I was thinking to use the “Annotation tool” to do this work for me, fast.

However, my first instance has references like: U1xx, C1xx, R1xx...
So my annotation process would be using the following settings:

Then the issue I am fighting is:

Kicad is not starting the next page in U2xx, C2xx, R2xx..., but it is jumping over the 200, and annotating the second instance of the hierarchical sheet with U3xx, C3xx, R3xx...` and the 3rd one with U4xx, C4xx, R4xx…`.

=/ this seems to be a bug. I will have to annotate all pages manually.

[leoheck]

I could fix my board (from the other post)
Allowing to keep the annotation of components on page 3 was a mistake too.
Since the Annotation script does not Keep the same annotation as in the first instance.

The best would have been, to duplicate the first instance N times. Keeping existing annotation. And then, work manually to just replace the first digit on both pages.

[paulvdh]

I do not know what your schematic looks like, what your annotated numbers are and why / how you want to change them. And without that information your last post is meaningless.

People make mistakes, and (hopefully) learn from them and then either continue with life or repeat them.

[leoheck]

haha, never mind. It was not a mistake.

I had issues with annotation. The PCB and the Shecmatics did not have the same References for some reason.

Also, I have instances (3) of the same Schematic Sheet.

Then I found how to fix the references easily, by just copying them from the Layout to the Schematics manually (as you also told me here in this post), so I could have a working design again.

But there were too many components… I was looking for an easy way of doing that.

Then I thought that I could ha a shortcut by doing that in just the first instance of the schematic sheets and then using the annotation to “replicate” what I put in the first sheet. But that did not work completely. Because it does not work like that. Id does not copy the first sheet. It just assings values sequentially. And since the first sheet did not have sorted annotation, this process did not work (I realized this later, too)

In the end, I had to write all instances manually, and double-check them since I make some mistakes.

But the best solution (I realized later too), would just be replicating the first sheet, including the current annotation… and then just replacing the most significant bit of the number.

Well, that is it. At least is fixed.