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Hi

Has anyone tried the Protel to KiCAD conversion tools recently? How well do they working importing a schematic and/or PCB layout?

There is a sourceforge page which I think is related



I am asking because there is a legacy PCB project trapped in the Protel format and I am wondering what options are available to convert to a free/open solution or if it is lost to proprietary obscurity.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

Hi, i am designing a board with kicad and i will be using round corners at
my board. I would like to take a try with freerout, however i am having a
problem with my board edge. The edges are all interconnected, but it is
throwing an error of dicontinuity. Any one ever had a similar problem? Any
simple workaround?

Regards,

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From: Luis Rossi <sink00@...>
To: kicad-users@...
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 7:05 AM
Subject: [kicad-users] Problem with kicad specctra export with round corners on board

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Hi, i am designing a board with kicad and i will be using round corners at my board. I would like to take a try with freerout, however i am having a problem with my board edge. The edges are all interconnected, but it is throwing an error of dicontinuity. Any one ever had a similar problem? Any simple workaround?

Regards,

--

Luís Filipe Rossi
Electrical Engineer

Biomechatronics Lab. / Grupo de Sensores Integráveis e Sistemas

Escola Politécnica
Universidade de S?o Paulo

Cel. +55 (11) 7662-9234

As far as I know, that is the way it is.?? The reference designators are on the "Render" tab to turn them on and off.?? I do not know of a way to include these as if they were a normal layer for printing.?? KiCad just automatically includes designators in the appropriate silkscreen layers (front or back) when you go to print or plot.

Under the plot menu you can choose to plot the "invisible texts" which might solve your #3??? The plot is not directly to print though and it keeps layers separate.?? So to combine them to an assembly drawing it takes a little more effort.

That is the best I can offer, maybe someone else out there has a better solution??? I agree though that this layer control could be improved.

________________________________
From: randyinnc55 <rluck1@...>
To: kicad-users@...
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 12:30 PM
Subject: [kicad-users] PCB visibility and layer questions


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1) When I place modules on a PCB layout, the text shows both the part value (like "1.0K" or "CD4046B" for example) and the reference designator (like "R5" or "U12" for example). Additionally, the modules typically might have an outline on the silkscreen layer. I have KiCad set up so that the top silkscreen layer is dark cyan colored (default I think). However the part value and reference designators are in a light gray. What layer are they on? If I put text on the top silk layer ("I/O Port" for example) and double click on it, the Text Properties dialog has a drop down that shows it is on the top silk layer. I could change the layer with the drop down if I wanted. If I double click on the part value or reference designator text, the Footprint Text Properties dialog has no such option for setting the layer. What layer are the part value and reference designator texts on? When I print each layer out, these texts are replicated on the top

silkscreen layer only, but if I go the the layer visibility tool bar on the right and uncheck the top silkscreen layer, only the dark cyan things go invisible, not the part value or reference designator texts.

2) A related issue, how would I set it so that the part value and reference designator texts show up on a mechanical or assembly techical layer while at the same time having only the reference designators on the top silkscreen layer? It seems really hokey to have to manually double click on every part's part value text and make set the text visibility to invisible.

3) If I go to the layer visibility tool bar on the right and uncheck all the layers, I would expect each layer to become invisible one by one. Eventually nothing should be visible. But all the parts remain. If they are SMT parts, they are colored like the top copper layer (sorry, Front), but all the top copper traces go invisible while the top side SMT parts remain. What layer are the parts on?

Thanks!

I have just done a 4 layer PCB layout with KiCad and am trying to make the inner plane layers. I click on the Add Filled Zones button on the right tool bar and the cursor changes to the pen shape. Then I go to draw the zone outline and click. The Zone Properties dialog pops up. I select the net that I want connected to the copper plane (GND for example) and click OK. An Error box pops up that says "Thermal relief spoke width is large than the minimum width". This is unexpected because the previous Zone properties dialog says that the Miniumum Width is 0.0080" and the Spoke Width is 0.0060". I did a Google search on this error and it turned up a forum discussion from several years ago on this issue but it is unfortunately for me posted in German. Does anyone have a clue as to what this error message is trying to tell me?

Hi,

I don't know about your actual problem, but if you have a link with the
German post I could translate/summarize it for you.

Regards,
Oli