gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
I am confused why pcb won't allow me to add a thermal to a via and to a through-hole pin. I am trying to connect these to the ground plane. Clicking the via or pin with the THRM tool has no effect. I expect it to add the X connecting the pin/via to the surrounding polygon ground plane. I even tried using the exact command given as an example in the SetFlag action section on the pcb manual SetFlag(SelectedPins,thermal) but I get the following result in the message window: SetFlag(): Flag thermal is not valid Regards, Colin ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
On Fri, May 06, 2011 at 11:54:41AM -0700, Colin D Bennett wrote: I am confused why pcb won't allow me to add a thermal to a via and to a through-hole pin. I am trying to connect these to the ground plane. Clicking the via or pin with the THRM tool has no effect. I expect it to add the X connecting the pin/via to the surrounding polygon ground plane. I even tried using the exact command given as an example in the SetFlag action section on the pcb manual SetFlag(SelectedPins,thermal) but I get the following result in the message window: SetFlag(): Flag thermal is not valid It appears that thermal is not supported by ChangeFlag (and SetFlag, which calls it). I believe this is a documentation bug. Instead try SetThermal(SelectedPins, 1) (the numbers 1,...,6 give different styles, and 0 means no thermal). -- Andrew Poelstra Email: asp11 at sfu.ca OR apoelstra at wpsoftware.net Web: http://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew/ ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
I am confused why pcb won't allow me to add a thermal to a via and to a through-hole pin. I am trying to connect these to the ground plane. Clicking the via or pin with the THRM tool has no effect. I expect it to add the X connecting the pin/via to the surrounding polygon ground plane. Hello, if I understand PCB design, vias are normally not solderable. So you do not need thermals there. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
For the thermal tool to work, the CURRENT layer needs to be the layer you want to add the thermal to. If your current layer is component, it won't add a thermal to gnd even if that's the only layer with a polygon on it. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
On Fri, 06 May 2011 21:28:51 +0200 (CEST)
Vaclav Peroutka vacla...@seznam.cz wrote:
I am confused why pcb won't allow me to add a thermal to a via and
to a through-hole pin. I am trying to connect these to the ground
plane. Clicking the via or pin with the THRM tool has no effect.
I expect it to add the X connecting the pin/via to the surrounding
polygon ground plane.
Hello,
if I understand PCB design, vias are normally not solderable. So you
do not need thermals there.
You are right -- I just figured out how to make the via connect to the
surrounding plane easily: hit Shift-k many times until no clearance is
visible around the copper annulus. (Verify using Ctrl-r, make sure
Clearance width in polygons = 0.)
I failed to set the clearance to zero at first, because I was using
ChangeClearSize(selected, 0, mil) and this appears to have no effect.
I usually avoid the increase/decrease keys because I generally want to
specify exact numbers, but it's fine to execute
while (clear!=0) {Shift-k; } manually whenever I need to do this.
Regards,
Colin
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Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias (RESOLVED)
On Fri, 6 May 2011 15:49:27 -0400 DJ Delorie d...@delorie.com wrote: For the thermal tool to work, the CURRENT layer needs to be the layer you want to add the thermal to. If your current layer is component, it won't add a thermal to gnd even if that's the only layer with a polygon on it. DJ, Problem solved. That was exactly my problem! I had created a separate layer for top and bottom ground plane. Thanks. Regards, Colin ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
On Fri, 6 May 2011 12:24:48 -0700 Andrew Poelstra as...@sfu.ca wrote: On Fri, May 06, 2011 at 11:54:41AM -0700, Colin D Bennett wrote: I am confused why pcb won't allow me to add a thermal to a via and to a through-hole pin. I am trying to connect these to the ground plane. Clicking the via or pin with the THRM tool has no effect. I expect it to add the X connecting the pin/via to the surrounding polygon ground plane. I even tried using the exact command given as an example in the SetFlag action section on the pcb manual SetFlag(SelectedPins,thermal) but I get the following result in the message window: SetFlag(): Flag thermal is not valid It appears that thermal is not supported by ChangeFlag (and SetFlag, which calls it). I believe this is a documentation bug. Instead try SetThermal(SelectedPins, 1) (the numbers 1,...,6 give different styles, and 0 means no thermal). Thanks for the tip. It works great in a minimal test board but it still fails with my real layout. Try it and see. Here's the board: http://gibibit.com/upload/2011-05-06_Thermal_problem_1.pcb I want to add a thermal to J1 pin 1. It is in the netlist as connected to GND. Regards, Colin ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias (RESOLVED)
Based on your other report, you also want to know this: shift-clicking the thermal tool changes the thermal type. One type is no thermal - solid, which is good for vias. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
Andrew Poelstra wrote: It appears that thermal is not supported by ChangeFlag (and SetFlag, which calls it). I believe this is a documentation bug. I believe, this is a missing feature. Even if thermals are technically no flags in the internals of PCB. From a user perspective this is a very natural category. For the sake of least surprise, the SetFlag action should allow to set this property, too. While at it, the rather limited scope of thermal tool may be broadened to a general flag tool: Right click on the tool icon offers a way to select what flag it tries to set or unset. LMB on objects set the flag, RMB unset the flag, MMB toggles. The thermal tool itself might benefit from some usability improvement, too: Currently it confuses users by not doing anything if there is no polygon at this place in the current layer. This was the cause of this thread. And I confess to have been stumbling on this when I was new to PCB. IMHO, the GUI should be verbose and pop up a note to explain why nothing happened. Ok, I better stop day dreaming before this becomes yet another list of feature requests... ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
It appears that thermal is not supported by ChangeFlag (and SetFlag, which calls it). I believe this is a documentation bug. I believe, this is a missing feature. I disagree - there is a separate thermal for each layer, and each thermal can be one of many types. It's no more a flag than, say, line width. The thermal tool itself might benefit from some usability improvement, too: Currently it confuses users by not doing anything if there is no polygon at this place in the current layer. Actually it does, but the results don't show up until you add the polygon. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
DJ Delorie wrote: I disagree - there is a separate thermal for each layer, and each thermal can be one of many types. It's no more a flag than, say, line width. It is a digital property, that can be turned on and off (per layer). This is conceptually very different from a line width. The thermal tool itself might benefit from some usability improvement, too: Currently it confuses users by not doing anything if there is no polygon at this place in the current layer. Actually it does, but the results don't show up until you add the polygon. This constitutes a violation against the principle of least surprise. A GUI should never do things without visible feedback. ---)kaimartin(--- -- Kai-Martin Knaak Email: k...@familieknaak.de Öffentlicher PGP-Schlüssel: http://pool.sks-keyservers.net:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x6C0B9F53 ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
Re: gEDA-user: pcb doesn't allow adding a thermal to vias
It is a digital property, that can be turned on and off (per layer). This is conceptually very different from a line width. It's not on/off. It's one of six different thermal types[*]. And we already have SetThermal(). And SetFlag() et al don't have a way to specify the layer. [*] one is no connection, one is solid connection, plus four finger-types. ___ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
