I’m getting back into KiCAD after an absence, last using 6.0.7 and not 7.0.8. In the schematic editor I’m using mils with .050" spacing.
I am correcting errors and warnings of a schematic a colleague did and find there are many 10 of warning of wires or component nodes being off grid, snap to grid is ON, but when I investigate a symbol and wires connecting to them I see they are spot on grid points. Moving the objects away then back to where they were doesn’t make any difference when ERC is run.
Symbol pin or wire end off grid.**
I cannot tell you why it is happening. The easiest thing you can do is just to select all components at once, press RMB and click ‘Align Elements to Grid’.
Looking with bare eyes is not sufficient. As Kicad uses internally a nanometer resolution (or something similar small) a slight misalignment is easily overlooked.
Also note that the “symbol+wires are on grid” ERC check works with the currently choosen grid setting.
Did you perhaps hit that shortkey which changes your gridsize? I believe the default was N … right next to M which you use all the time. It really makes it easy to accidently change gridsize and cause this kind of problems.
Regardless of the cause, I do recommend to remove the N shortkey as it has only givin me misery
I know that sometimes when I intended to hit the “M” key (without looking) to move an object I hit the key on either side of it. When I checked View > Grid Properties I saw than indeed the “N” key must have been hit a few times as the Custom Grid Values were 10 x 10 mils instead of 50 x 50 mils. I corrected this, went back and selected all items on the schematic, right clicked and selected Align Elements to Grid. All those pesky Warnings I described vanished. Thanks for this tip.
I solved this problem a long time ago.
N was reassigned to Grid Properties, which shows the Grid Settings panel. I find this very useful when drawing symbols. It also reminds me, without unnoticed consequences, to improve my typing if I was trying to Move something.
“Switch to next Grid” and “Switch to Previous Grid” are now Alt + N and Shift + N. It is not easy to accidentally change grids for me.
