Wide traces to narrow pads

[RobK]

I’m working on a design with a lot of Cree XPE LEDs. These have long and narrow pads, but because their max. current is 1.5A, big, fat traces are in order.

Problem is that the rounded ends of those traces collide with the central heatsink pad. Manually backing up the trace a few tenths of a mm. resolves this, but when you have to route 85 of these things, that quickly becomes a complete nuisance.

I used to work with Cadstar, which automatically made traces not extend beyond the pad, but KiCad does not seem to have such option.

Her’s what I mean:

[Claudio.Lorini]

i think that this could be a reasonable feature to request, if you’ll go ahead i’ll give you a thumbs-up.

[RobK]

Seems I’m not the only one, nor the first: Smarter pad entry for thick traces (#8027) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab
Even specifically mentions Cadstar as well.

The fact that nothing has been done with it for three years does not instill much confidence in a swift solution, though

[Dominic_Webb]

How about creating a custom footprint that has the start of the trace as part of the pad?

[RobK]

Good suggestion, that will probably work.

It would still prefer not to, but 170 traces say otherwise …

[RobK]

I had to fiddle with the “offset shape from hole” a bit to get it right, but I now have a footprint that looks like this:

To which the traces connect like this:

[maui]

You may have a look at RF-tools
Tapers for pads and tracks

[RaptorUK]

@RobK

Her’s what I mean:

I looked at this and tried seeing if Teardrops helped, they didn’t, but maybe it could be implemented as a teardrop feature.