Hello!
Most of my question is in the title. Before I forget: I’m using 5.1 on Windows 10.
I have added a few values for via’s drill diameter and restring. Now the PCB maker
has changed the rules and allows smaller drills. I would like to setup the smallest
drill (0.2), but I don’t find it. When I add a 0.5 / 0.2 via, the board setup says that
I can’t setup smaller drills than the smalles. This makes sense, but how do I change
the setting of this smallest drill / via?
Thanks,
Pascal
File-> board setup.
(Minimum drillsize is in the DRC rules part but you can also set via sizes per netclass. The later can help with updating your board as there is a way to tell kicad to make all vias or tracks equal to their netclass.)
Hello!
Thanks for your reply!
Minimum drillsize is in the DRC rules part.
That’s exactly what I am asking. Where are these DRC rules?
you can also set via sizes per netclass
I suppose I will bump into the same problem.
In the board setup -> net classes, I can change the default. I can indeed change to anything, but it has to comply with the minimal size that I’m looking for. I can set the default to 0.4 or whatever, also to 0.3 because it’s the current minimal, but not 0.2 because it’s less than the minimal size.
Just in case, I have created a class called ViaClass, and tried to set it to 0.5 diameter, 0.2 drill. No way.
I also checked “edit track and via properties”, but here I can only set what already exists, I cannot change the minimal via drill or diameter.
I also noticed that the DRC control panel (when pressing on the lady bug) allows to set the minimum via size to what I want, but apparently it’s only for the check and it cannot set the board properties. After having set 0.5 diameter and 0.2 minimal drill, if I try to add a new via in board setup -> track and vias, it still complains that the via is less than the minimal via.
Thanks for any hint!
Pascal
As a relatively new KiCad user It took me a while to find these settings on version 5.1 also. I guess it was because when I opened the board setup window I did not expect there to be data fields on the right side of the screen when “Design Rules” is clicked. I was expecting that only the menu items listed under “Design Rules” would be shown. Since the Design rules menu was already expanded it didn’t occur to me right away to select the Design Rules menu option. I now know to select every menu option when looking for settings.
Hello Rene!
Sorry, as usual, it was exactly in front of me. For some reason I assumed there are only sub categories (i.e. nothing in Design Rules).
Now at last I got it. Thanks for your effort and your patience.
Pascal
@ChrisGammell Hello Chris, Checking all the menu selections might be a good topic for a short KiCad Version 5.1 video. Just a thought.
There are many other tools that do it exactly the same way. Examples include: Eclipse, CATIA, inkscape, gimp (It seems any tool with a complex setup menu does it this way.)
The only tool that is a bit different here is freecad. I don’t think their style would work with kicad right now.
Eagle is also different. They do not have a centralized setup dialog. (Which i find much worse than kicads centralized approach.)
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.