Where has the routing rules menu gone?

[PabloMack]

I upgraded from an 8-year old version of KiCAD and now I am using the Layout. I need to assign track widths to nets and other routing rules but that menu seems to be gone. Where is it?

[paulvdh]

In KiCad V5.1.x:
Pcbnew / File / Board Setup / Design Rules / Net Classes

Or, for quicker access, the Icon below in the top toolbar.

[PabloMack]

Yeah. I brought up the same thing using the Track: tab. After selecting Net Classes, I see no net names listed even though the board has several. “Show All Nets” button seems to do nothing. I am supposing that the panel in the bottom right is where the net names should appear but it is empty. This is below the heading that says “Net” and “Net Class”. I know that the file has nets because the white strings connect pads together and I can route with the Default track width. But no nets show up in the Net Classes panel.

[paulvdh]

Those drop down boxes for tracks and via’s work with the pre-defined settings in Pcbnew / File / Board Setup / Design Rules / Tracks & Via’s. This is a separate system from the normal net classes. Those lists are empty at the beginning of a project. If you enter some settings in that menu, they appear in the drop-down boxes and you can switch quickly between them.

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So you may have a problem with nets or net classes.
To verify this, you can first download a little example project.
If you take the 2019-03-03_LoPower2.zip (51.9 KB) project, previously posted in this link:

Seek review my first design

I’ve been tinkering a bit with your project. I hope you don’t mind. What I did in short: Schematic: Added Vcc to pin 20 and added cap for Aref. Schematic: Added mounting holes. Exchanged mounting holes for holes with rings, so the scews dont touch GND. Rotated PCB 90 deg. so if fits better on my monitor. Added GND plane. Fattened up traces (Most from 0.25mm to 0.35mm). Optimized GND plane by making cutouts smaller. Rotated U3 180 deg. becausee of routing. Fat outline, to incre…

and you open it. then the Net classes window should look like:

The lower right corner should list all nets in the project. If you do not have these in your own project, then there is something wrong with the netlist itself.

In the top part there are 3 net classes. Default is always available, while Thick and Vcc have been added manually into the project.

This link has a small beginners tutorial and also handle the net classes:

Tutorial: Introduction to PCB design with KiCad version 5.1 (Getting Started)

Getting the PCB Ready for Manufacturing We continue our work so for your convenience here the project files you should have so far: first_project_pcb2.zip (8.5 KB) We have not really looked at the requirements for manufacturing this board until now. For example, we used the KiCad default rules instead of defining them based on our manufacturers capabilities. Nor did we define our own electrical requirements. In a typical project you will start with first defining these rules. We show this here…

(I also had a look at the official Pcbnew manual https://docs.kicad.org/5.0/en/pcbnew/pcbnew.html but unfortunately it is also bit out of date. It still shows screenshots from a previous KiCad version. Maybe V5.0.x or V4.x

[PabloMack]

I downloaded and ran the test that you suggested and the net names do show up the same way if I use the drop-down or use the File/Board Setup/Design Rules/Net Classes. When I look at the pads in my project, the net names are there but they do not show up in the Net Classes. Is it possible to add them manually?

[craftyjon]

Try doing an update from schematic (F8)

[paulvdh]

@PabloMack

the net names are there but they do not show up in the Net Classes.

I do not understand.
Maybe uploading a screenshot would help.
In the early stages all nets (created in Eeschema) are assigned to the default net class.

@craftyjon

Try doing an update from schematic (F8)

[F8] only works from within Eeschema. It’s also in the menu in: Eeschema / Tools / Update PCB from Schematic … [F8]

Or you can trigger it from Pcbnew / Tools / Update PCB from Schematic, but it does not have a hotkey in Pcbnew.

[PabloMack]

It was Friday and I decided to just quit for the long weekend. I just put off dealing with this until today. After just adjusting some component positions I decided to look at the problem again and the net names just started showing up by themselves. Very strange.