Hi Albin,

I'm afraid KiCad is not yet aware of pad-stacks. The pad will be
present on all your internal layers, and so the DRC is correctly
warning you of the violation.

It is best to plot one of the inner layers and view it with the gerber
viewer, you'll see that the TH pad is present on this layer.

Because a pad-stack cannot be defined in KiCad, a pad is either on one
of the outer layers (SMT) or on all layers (TH).

Good luck with your project.

Best Regards,

Brian.

Hi

I have a six layer PCB with a connector using plated-through-hole mounting and would like to run traces between the holes in layer 2-5. In layer 1 and 6 the pads are to close to each other but in the inner layer it shouldn't be a problem.

It seems however that I'm unable to do so without complaints from the DRC.

Is it supposed to be like this? Do the pads need to be the same size in the inner layers?
What's the best way to get around this?

I guess I could route the traces with DRC turned off, but I'm not happy with this since the over all DRC will fail later.

I also believe I could get around this by creating one round drilled pad in layer 1 and another similar pad i layer 6 with the exact same position and pin-number. I haven't tried yet though. Is there any better way to do this, or shouldn't I even try to do this?

Kind regards
Albin, Sweden

On 01/25/2011 10:40 PM, analognoise@... wrote:

Hi, I recently got KiCad and am looking to become proficient in it.
The tutorials seem very short and cursory.

I have never designed a PCB but would like to learn.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Read the PDF documentation - watch the youtube demos,

There are a bunch of notes I made as I learned it here:



The part you will spend some time on is creating library parts - unless you can use only parts provided in the standard LIB.

I think learning to create library parts is a first step.

------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Transtronics, Inc. WEB
3209 West 9th Street Ph (785) 841-3089
Lawrence, KS 66049 FAX (785) 841-0434

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These were not transfers, they were paper outlines, usually double size.
You had rows of dots on tape spaced at 0.2, double rows for DIL IC's and
so on. The tape was thin rolls starting at about 1mm wide and increasing
up to about 5mm. Everything was laid out on a grid, and the tape was
flexible so as you pressed it down you could form curves. You then
scalpeled it off against a pad.

Once you have your design done, you would then take a precision 2:1
reduction of the tape layout onto photographic film to produce the masters
for the pcb production. from memory you needed a top and bottom film, a
roundel master for drilling, and a dot master for the PTH process This
was a sheet where you placed a small paper dot over all the drill holes
and produced a film from it. I guess that this was used as a master for
the plating process.


Took quite a bit of work, but like most things fairly easy once you got
used to it.


OK on the polishing block, yes I have several in the cabinet. they work
quite nicely.

Transparency films don't retain toner very well, they also tend to pick
up a lot of stray toner, so they go a bit grey rather than stay clear.
Some people I know make two films and tape them together to get the
density up.

I've tried the tracing paper method as well, and it works. However I've
found a really nice laser film that does a superb job.

Hydrocopy Laser PW-F100TDL

(this is the 100 micron thickness)


Just under 17 pounds (inc. vat) for 100 sheets. Quite a bit cheaper than
the "special" films that mega sell...


Andy



On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:27:46 +0000
Robert <birmingham_spider@...> wrote:

Etch Resist pens and such were how many people started out.
A VAST improvement after messing about with Veroboard :-)


Have you ever tried REAL PCB layout, Lightboxes, Mylar sheets, stick-down
"dots" for pads and vias, thin rolls of crepe tape to form the tracks.

I did try transfers. The problem was one never had quite the right
transfer, so the resulting design looked awful. Also trying to get a
straight track of just the right length was very, very fiddly.

Once PC's became ubiquitous I found the best way was to laser print the
design on to tracing paper and use that as a mask in a UV box. For
some reason tracing paper gave hugely superior results to
transparencies, even though under visible light the mask didn't look too
promising.

One other tip is if using bare copper board (rather than light-sensitive
board) one of these will save you a lot of grief:



They are vastly better than anything else for preparing the copper
surface, and they last forever (mine is 30 years old I think it will
outlive me).

Regards,

Robert.

--
() Plain text email - safe, readable, inclusive.
/&#92;


------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

Etch Resist pens and such were how many people started out.
A VAST improvement after messing about with Veroboard :-)


Have you ever tried REAL PCB layout, Lightboxes, Mylar sheets, stick-down
"dots" for pads and vias, thin rolls of crepe tape to form the tracks.

I did try transfers. The problem was one never had quite the right transfer, so the resulting design looked awful. Also trying to get a straight track of just the right length was very, very fiddly.

Once PC's became ubiquitous I found the best way was to laser print the design on to tracing paper and use that as a mask in a UV box. For some reason tracing paper gave hugely superior results to transparencies, even though under visible light the mask didn't look too promising.

One other tip is if using bare copper board (rather than light-sensitive board) one of these will save you a lot of grief:



They are vastly better than anything else for preparing the copper surface, and they last forever (mine is 30 years old I think it will outlive me).

Regards,

Robert.

--
() Plain text email - safe, readable, inclusive.
/&#92;

Etch Resist pens and such were how many people started out.
A VAST improvement after messing about with Veroboard :-)


Have you ever tried REAL PCB layout, Lightboxes, Mylar sheets, stick-down
"dots" for pads and vias, thin rolls of crepe tape to form the tracks.

I did a short course on this once, quite relaxing really, then did all
the photography involved.. Then the company bought one of the Early Racal
Kadet PCB layout systems, and us engineers were not allowed near it. (I
think they thought we would take it to bits) So the PCB techs did all the
layout for us, so I never did get to try out a hand taped design.


The dorkbotpdx service is rather nice, but I'm sorry to read that there
may be problems with it in terms of lack of use. In any case it's not too
much use in the UK, as we would get stung for a handling charge if the
board went through customs. The duty is not too bad, but the blasted post
office stuffs on a whopping big "handling charge"

My neighbour bought a webcontrol board a few days ago, cost was about 47
pounds. the duty was about 7 pounds, but the handling charge was almost
14, so an additional 20+ pounds to the costs.

Sometimes things slip through and you don't get the charges, but you can't
rely on that.

I'm also getting a bit confused... I popped onto your site, and the links
section did not mention anything about web pages making schematic
libraries. All I can see is "Design Reference Links" which point to the
OpenEEG project, monilith, and EXG-2 projects.

Am I missing something obvious?


Andy



On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:10:37 -0000
"josh_eeg" <josheeg@...> wrote:

Well I did one pcb that way in college.
But I was very impressed with the little 1 inch by 1 inch ADS1298 biopotential mesurement chip carrier. Carriers are great they let you prototipe with the breadboards TQFP packages for newer chips this one came out at TI.com only last april as a sample item.

.8 mill wire thicknesses by batch pcb or dorkbotpdx both come out great. I got 3 for 7.50 or somewhere around there from dorkbotpdx it was fun gold plated with purple soldermask and silkscreen sm805 surface mount resistors and caps. It could be hard to get the parts to do it in the DIY manufacturing way also your kicad design can be coppied for a sheet and run as a pannel and run throuhgh a pick n place then a hot oven like a pizza cooker and there are 100s of your design.

Here are my kicad files

Take a look notice the herarchal design it allows you to first make modules using connectors like making a dual inline package then remove the connector add herarchal labels or better yet have the connectors on the top level so you can embed that schematic in different places. Also dont forget to make your shcematic symbol libraries .lib don't send through google mail so I use google sites to zip my kicad files and store.
there is a airea in the links airea that let you use a web page to make the schematic libraries. I coppy the chips footprint it lets the schematic look like the board and layout nice n easy.

their is a java footprint maker and the autoroute is quite good. I use 8.3 mills set for all.

--- In kicad-users@..., Andy Eskelson <andyyahoo@...> wrote:

That brings back a memory or two :-)


I started in much the same way 35+ years ago. I made loads of boards
using the etch resist pen. Denco "Dalo" I might still have one around
somewhere... I must admit that I never had any problems with it, in fact
it was hard to remove the ink after etching!

Once you learnt the trick of making a small puddle of the ink then just
dipping the point in it rather than trying to get the ink to flow they
worked fine.

When people started to use the permanent lumocolour type marker type pens,
then they were a bit problematic.

What really made me grin was your comment about aluminium poking sticks.

I also kept the ferric in the shed, and as I had not used it for some
time the water had evaporated, and the ferric formed a hard lump in the
bottom of the container. So a few quick thumps broke some of it up, and a
good helping of hot water to dissolve it was added. Of course I was
getting impatient, so an old antenna element rod was used to break up the
ferric into smaller lumps. all was going well until the rod started to
fizz and everything got rather hot very quickly. Later I came across
thermite and the penny dropped...

I still use ferric, and to be honest I don't find any real problems with
it, just keep it away from stainless steel and mop up any spills quickly,
better yet don't spill it :-)

I only do hobby type projects at home, but I've gone over to the photo
resist process now. Old flatbed scanner converted into a UV box, and
I'm thinking about building a bubble etch tank to make things easier.

Andy








On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:28:08 +0000
Robert <birmingham_spider@...> wrote:

As Andy said, it is a big question. I started by reading about how to
make my own PCBs in books and magazines, but that was back in the days
when you drew circuits on to a copper-clad board with a pen and then
watched as some of the unwanted copper and most of your circuit
dissolved very slowly in a disgusting vat of ferric chloride. It was a
painful learning curve, but many of those boards did turn out
sufficiently OK and 30 years on some are still in use. I think ferric
chloride is still used by hobbyists, so I will warn you of two things.
The irremovable brown stains turn up absolutely everywhere (I ended up
working in the garden shed, no matter how cold it was), and it dissolves
aluminium poking sticks much faster than it dissolves the copper. In
fact it seems to damage or destroy anything and everything (including
personal relationships). Using kicad will at least eliminate the
misery of using the so-called etch-resistant pen.

In addition to the tutorial Andy mentioned, before starting on kicad you
should at least skim through the documentation in the kicad directory so
you know where to look when you get stuck. You may also want to read
through the documents here:



Don't worry about committing it all to memory, but it should help to
keep you on track.

Good luck, and don't be afraid to ask newbie questions on this list.

Regards,

Robert.


On 26/01/2011 04:40, analognoise@... wrote:

Hi, I recently got KiCad and am looking to become proficient in it.
The tutorials seem very short and cursory.

I have never designed a PCB but would like to learn.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?



------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links





---
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Virus Database (VPS): 110125-1, 25/01/2011
Tested on: 26/01/2011 09:26:14
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.

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/&#92;


------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

Well I did one pcb that way in college.
But I was very impressed with the little 1 inch by 1 inch ADS1298 biopotential mesurement chip carrier. Carriers are great they let you prototipe with the breadboards TQFP packages for newer chips this one came out at TI.com only last april as a sample item.

.8 mill wire thicknesses by batch pcb or dorkbotpdx both come out great. I got 3 for 7.50 or somewhere around there from dorkbotpdx it was fun gold plated with purple soldermask and silkscreen sm805 surface mount resistors and caps. It could be hard to get the parts to do it in the DIY manufacturing way also your kicad design can be coppied for a sheet and run as a pannel and run throuhgh a pick n place then a hot oven like a pizza cooker and there are 100s of your design.

Here are my kicad files

Take a look notice the herarchal design it allows you to first make modules using connectors like making a dual inline package then remove the connector add herarchal labels or better yet have the connectors on the top level so you can embed that schematic in different places. Also dont forget to make your shcematic symbol libraries .lib don't send through google mail so I use google sites to zip my kicad files and store.
there is a airea in the links airea that let you use a web page to make the schematic libraries. I coppy the chips footprint it lets the schematic look like the board and layout nice n easy.

their is a java footprint maker and the autoroute is quite good. I use 8.3 mills set for all.

That brings back a memory or two :-)


I started in much the same way 35+ years ago. I made loads of boards
using the etch resist pen. Denco "Dalo" I might still have one around
somewhere... I must admit that I never had any problems with it, in fact
it was hard to remove the ink after etching!

Once you learnt the trick of making a small puddle of the ink then just
dipping the point in it rather than trying to get the ink to flow they
worked fine.

When people started to use the permanent lumocolour type marker type pens,
then they were a bit problematic.

What really made me grin was your comment about aluminium poking sticks.

I also kept the ferric in the shed, and as I had not used it for some
time the water had evaporated, and the ferric formed a hard lump in the
bottom of the container. So a few quick thumps broke some of it up, and a
good helping of hot water to dissolve it was added. Of course I was
getting impatient, so an old antenna element rod was used to break up the
ferric into smaller lumps. all was going well until the rod started to
fizz and everything got rather hot very quickly. Later I came across
thermite and the penny dropped...

I still use ferric, and to be honest I don't find any real problems with
it, just keep it away from stainless steel and mop up any spills quickly,
better yet don't spill it :-)

I only do hobby type projects at home, but I've gone over to the photo
resist process now. Old flatbed scanner converted into a UV box, and
I'm thinking about building a bubble etch tank to make things easier.

Andy








On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:28:08 +0000
Robert <birmingham_spider@...> wrote:

As Andy said, it is a big question. I started by reading about how to
make my own PCBs in books and magazines, but that was back in the days
when you drew circuits on to a copper-clad board with a pen and then
watched as some of the unwanted copper and most of your circuit
dissolved very slowly in a disgusting vat of ferric chloride. It was a
painful learning curve, but many of those boards did turn out
sufficiently OK and 30 years on some are still in use. I think ferric
chloride is still used by hobbyists, so I will warn you of two things.
The irremovable brown stains turn up absolutely everywhere (I ended up
working in the garden shed, no matter how cold it was), and it dissolves
aluminium poking sticks much faster than it dissolves the copper. In
fact it seems to damage or destroy anything and everything (including
personal relationships). Using kicad will at least eliminate the
misery of using the so-called etch-resistant pen.

In addition to the tutorial Andy mentioned, before starting on kicad you
should at least skim through the documentation in the kicad directory so
you know where to look when you get stuck. You may also want to read
through the documents here:



Don't worry about committing it all to memory, but it should help to
keep you on track.

Good luck, and don't be afraid to ask newbie questions on this list.

Regards,

Robert.


On 26/01/2011 04:40, analognoise@... wrote:

Hi, I recently got KiCad and am looking to become proficient in it.
The tutorials seem very short and cursory.

I have never designed a PCB but would like to learn.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?



------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links





---
avast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 110125-1, 25/01/2011
Tested on: 26/01/2011 09:26:14
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.

--
() Plain text email - safe, readable, inclusive.
/&#92;


------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

As Andy said, it is a big question. I started by reading about how to make my own PCBs in books and magazines, but that was back in the days when you drew circuits on to a copper-clad board with a pen and then watched as some of the unwanted copper and most of your circuit dissolved very slowly in a disgusting vat of ferric chloride. It was a painful learning curve, but many of those boards did turn out sufficiently OK and 30 years on some are still in use. I think ferric chloride is still used by hobbyists, so I will warn you of two things. The irremovable brown stains turn up absolutely everywhere (I ended up working in the garden shed, no matter how cold it was), and it dissolves aluminium poking sticks much faster than it dissolves the copper. In fact it seems to damage or destroy anything and everything (including personal relationships). Using kicad will at least eliminate the misery of using the so-called etch-resistant pen.

In addition to the tutorial Andy mentioned, before starting on kicad you should at least skim through the documentation in the kicad directory so you know where to look when you get stuck. You may also want to read through the documents here:



Don't worry about committing it all to memory, but it should help to keep you on track.

Good luck, and don't be afraid to ask newbie questions on this list.

Regards,

Robert.

--
() Plain text email - safe, readable, inclusive.
/&#92;

That's a big question....

Have you found:



The tutorial that is in kicad is very old, but do run through it several
times, using kicad is more about getting used to how kicad does things
than anything else. (There are a lot of things on the right click context
menu, that new users often miss)


The most important thing to remember is that you WILL collect and modify
library parts and modules (especially modules) Ensure that you save
these in your OWN directories rather than in the kicad libs and mods
directories. This is because when you upgrade the program the kicad libs
and mods will be overwritten. I made the mistake on not doing this at
first... Luckily my backup system had copies.


Each of the programs in kicad has it's own help document. access via
the help menu or directly from the kicad/doc/help directory
The help files are pdf documents. There is a lot of info in them.


Other than that you just need to use the program. I'll guess that you are
really talking about hobby type projects, so just give it a go. You will
probably get into a mess with power flags, power ports and so on but just
shout here for help, we have all gone through this at one time :-)

Keep things simple at first and it will come together quite quickly.



Andy






On Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:40:28 -0000
"analognoise@..." <analognoise@...> wrote:

Hi, I recently got KiCad and am looking to become proficient in it.
The tutorials seem very short and cursory.

I have never designed a PCB but would like to learn.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?



------------------------------------

Please read the Kicad FAQ in the group files section before posting your question.
Please post your bug reports here. They will be picked up by the creator of Kicad.
Please visit for details of how to contribute your symbols/modules to the kicad library.
For building Kicad from source and other development questions visit the kicad-devel group at ! Groups Links

Hi, I recently got KiCad and am looking to become proficient in it.
The tutorials seem very short and cursory.

I have never designed a PCB but would like to learn.
Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I'm trying to get an IGES, STEP, or Pro/Engineer 3D file into PCBNew.

I've tried gmsh to read the STEP file, which I can do, but the resulting exported VRML and STL files are skeleton files containing no 3D model.

I then tried following the advice in an earlier post on Kicad (the one to which I'm replying) to use BRL-CAD. After a bit of stabbing in the dark I found that

iges-g -n -o 522711669.g 522711669.igs

got the model into BRL-CAD form (it can be viewed in Archer). However, I now can't get it into STL form (for import into Wings) or VRML form (for direct reading into PCBNew). I get an error message:

C:&#92;apps&#92;BRL-CAD&#92;7.14.8&#92;bin>g-vrml -o 522711669.wrl 522711669.g all
nmg_booltree_leaf_tess(all): tessellation failure
db_walk_subtree() FAIL on '/all'

"all" is the correct object name, and yes, I am working in the bin directory. Googling got me nowhere.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Has anyone found a way of getting these widely used 3D file formats into PCBNew without resorting to some expensive CAD program to which they are lucky enough to have access?

Regards,

Robert.

--
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/&#92;

I have a small display problem in PCBnew. My vias don't show up in translucent white like they should. Via holes do appear in black if set to do so, but the part that should be in white only appears (faintly) if the via's net is highlighted.

Here's an image to illustrate:



There are two vias in the image. The upper one has its net highlighted and so you can see the entire via, but the on the lower one you can only see the hole (note the missing grid points around the end of the track).

I'm using 2010-05-05 BZR 2356 on Win32 and since this is a work machine I've been reluctant to move to 2684 right away. Is there a setting I'm missing or is this something strange?

--
Adam Ottley
Brehon Agrisystems, Inc.
102-2750 Faithfull Ave.
Saskatoon, SK CANADA
S7K 6M6

Hello Tony,

I guess the best way of doing it within the framework of generic SPICE commands is to create an include file that simply remaps the parameter arguments.

Example this works:

STEP1: REMAP
*-------------------------------REMAP of PARAMETER ORDER SNIPPET----
.SUBCKT LT1086-5_KICAD GND IN OUT
X1 GND OUT IN LT1086-5
.ENDS
*-------------------------------------------------------------------

STEP2: Use remapping reference name within the schematic capture name.

STEP3: Include remapping file as a .include command within the schematics going forward. Example .include "myRemaps.cir".

I am wondering if we should somehow create a universal master "FixupFile" to include that all Kicad users constantly refine.

One thing that caught my attention with LTSPICE is that you can have a file for library included in your netlist. This file does not have to be stored locally it can exist on a HTTP server. LTSPICE will automatically fetch it for the simulation. So its possible to have this fixup file on the Kicad website for everyone. This would then allow everyone to get the most updated fix-ups.

I like SPICE sequence order attribute. It should not take the team long to impliment this generic feature. I just looked at the PSpice netlister code for Kicad I think I can add the necessary attribute/hack. Possibly for now just pull the correct parameter sequence from one of the generic part property attributes that each user is free to add.

Also!

If you intend to use the board in a high G or rotating equipment, you need at
least 1.5mm FR4 as well as being careful when placing heavy components. Even a
lightwheight resistor becomes heavy when you rotate the board.

//Dan, M0DFI

Yes, just use four arcs to create the board edges. In the past I found that the arcs were approximated by a relatively small number straight lines, creating something that looked like a circle with notches. I don't know if that is still the case.

Note that circles don't make very efficient use of FR4, so if you can make the board polygonal (so it will tessellate) and still fit in the same space, then so much the better.

Regards,

Robert.

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开云体育

The pin-array ones are OK; the ribbon headers (both right angle and vertical) are wrong too, I just made my own copies, fixed the holes, and renamed them.

/mike

With pin headers you need to use modules from the pin_array library.

Regards,

Robert.

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/&#92;

Hi there,

I just received the PCBs from fabrication.. unfortunately I have a
design flaw..

As I used SIL-6 & SIL-14 they have 0.032" drill holes which don't fit
regular 0.1" square pin arrays which would require a 0.04" drill hole.

Are those footprints wrong? Or if not, what kind of connector should I
use with them?

Thank you,

Fabio Varesano