What are all these crosses that are not part of any layer?
Some of them seem to be on top of pin1, or a mounting hole. others in the centre of a component, and they get selected with the component.
What are they for?
Thanks!
Footprint’s origins (0,0 point).
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They’re the origin (center) of the component - the (0,0) point in the footprint’s coordinate system. It’s also referred to as the footprint anchor.
If you’re doing automated assembly and outputing a position file for the pick-and-place machine, this is the spot that the pick and place machine will consider to be the footprint’s location.
Footprints from KiCad’s standard library will have their origin set to the pin1 location if they are through-hole components, or the centroid of the component if they are surface mount. There are some exceptions if a component’s manufacturer recommends the pick-and-place machine should pick up the component in a location that isn’t its center.
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Can I hide them, please? I’m trying to design some silkscreen printing on the backside and see those pink crosses of SMD components on the front side everywhere. Nothing of these front side components is visible anymore (all layers hidden) but these crosses (and the unconnected net lines, which can be hidden from the View menu) are very persistent. This hasn’t existed in KiCad 5.
Turn off “anchor” visibility in the appearance manager’s objects tab:
They’re in v5 too, but the default color scheme for them is dark blue which is hard to see on the default black background, so you may not have noticed them. Here I changed the background to white to make it easier to see them.
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