Changed my tracewidth from 0.25 to 0.254 to get 10mil traces. But display was set to metric default. All routed traces appeared with outline only, not filled - effectively invisible.
Had to change display to imperial , showed filled then.
Bit weird, but seems solved.
Hi ufo,
Why do you want traces width to be round numbers in imperial rather than in metric?
1 Like
I’m not sure what happened here.
KiCad itself works with nanometer resolution (metric) and the width of tracks should not influence how they are presented to the user.
Making tracks wider will cause DRC errors if it results in clearance violations, which it probably will.
Tracks can always be shown in either filled or outline mode. Outline mode is useful for analyzing overlapping sections, you can see if a wide track is drawn over a narrow track and other such things. The setting is in Pcbnew / View / Drawing Mode / Sketch Tracks and it is also available via the icons on the left side of the screen.
1 Like
Hi, Frederik,
I was preparing layouts for prototype production offshore. All specs on their website (widths, gaps, holes…) are in mil, so I thought full mil widths might be more appropriate. Years ago I´ve printed with BetaLayout, where it didn´t matter, but they got pretty expensive.
I returned to 0.25 instead of 0.254, traces are still visible. Vias not yet, I´ll simply redo them in metric.
I´ve used Eagle, Zuken (Ifm), Pulsonix (CarlZeissSmt), Altium Designer/Protel (still have a 2006 edition), Innoveda, Pads, Orcad, at MaxPlanck even an early version of Mentor xpedition, but such a feature was new, and puzzling. Probably artifact of the display scaling algo,
Don´t mind I consider it solved (by writing I thought a bit deeper), yust a note for others encountering this.
Lg, Klaus Bickert
If further questions:
+49 89 769 3588, +49 163 630 8384
Could you post step by step procedure on how did you make the tracks disappear?
How did you change the track width? Hotkey, menus?
Are you sure you just did not change track display to outline mode?
For what it’s worth: I never had a single complaint about rounding (down) mill process limits to the nearest ‘pretty’ mm size, not even from automated classification (web calculators). That does for 0.004" == 0.1016mm -> 0.1, 0.005" == 0.127 -> 0.125, 0.006" == 0.1524mm -> 0.15 and 0.008" == 0.2032mm -> 0.2. Same for hole sizes. Check with your favourite board houses if they care (my guess: not even a little bit).
Hi, Fred,
I had placed all parts and went to setup to get 4layers and set design
rules. Changed the 0.25 width to 0.254 and added a POW net with 0.508.
Then I started to draw traces, but got none, it seemed. On closer
inspection I saw very thin outlines of the traces placed. Same for Vias
(hadn’t changed their diameter or hole size). After a bit of searching
(I´m reöativeyl new to Kicad, some 5 boards) ya found a setting to
change metric to mil, could see the traces then, but not the Vias.
Already after midnight, I went to sleep. Next day placed some dozen
traces, but still vias where outline only. Risking to redo all traces, I
changed settings back to metric, selected units->metric. Traces still
there, vias still outline. A hint from the forum made me look at (german
version) I untagged Ansicht->Zeichnungsmodes->Vias entwerfen
(View->DrawungMode->ViaDesign ?). Leiterbahn entwerfen was already untagged.
Vias appered filled, everything looked fine. Meanwhile I finished the
board without any DRC error.
I´m still using KiCad 5,0,2+dfg1-1 on a Linux 5.3.0-64 lowlatency, don´t
like to change versions during project. Moving to V6 for the next.
Lg, Klaus Bickert
If there are more questions, you can call too:
+49 163 630 8384 or +49 89 769 3588 (ab)
V6 is not yet released. The current version is 5.1.9 and it is fully compatible with v5.0.2.
These are also available as buttons in the left toolbar. The same toolbar where you can switch between metric and imperial so maybe you misclicked. And i assume these options are also available as hotkeys so maybe you accidentally triggered one of them.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.