Re: [kicad-users] Newbie to both PCDing and Kicad
Making a pin passive does not change the connection status. It will still require a wire to it. If you really do not want to use a pin, then all you need to do is place a no connect flag on it, (the blue X 9th icon down on the right hand side) Are you using KiCad libraries or stuff imported from other packages? Sometimes that can cause problems. Try a few tests with KiCad only libs and if that improves things, you may need to investigate the other libs that you are using, esp. the layout grid. If you have been making your own libs and mods, be VERY careful about pin names and numbers, the module and libs must match or things will get very confused. My clearance setting is the default 0.006 so this seems to be pointing to problems with your module pad sizes, or as you say things may not work until you sort out the connection issue. Until you get the connections sorted out, PCBnew won't really work as it needs a rats nest to work on. People do a lot more than produce home made PCB's with KiCad, so I think you have only got a few teething problems to sort out. (I only do home PCBs as well, and I have no problems.) If you want to try one of my homebrew circuits give me a mail and I'll send you a suitable project file to play with Andy On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:40:10 -0700 (PDT) Ted Huntington huntington_...@yahoo.com wrote: Thanks: I solved my library problems, but still can't connect the wires to the devices. Making a big circular junction that covers the wire and pin doesn't make the connection. I made the pins passive and it still is making a warning unconnected pin. Another nice feature to put on the todo list is: resize wires - that is nice if a person just needs to move a wire over to connect precisely with a pin. In PCBNEW I'm getting Track near pad from the DRC, even with a clearance of .001. I have to turn off the DRC to connect tracks. But then - I also have no rat's nests connections because I can't get the pins to connect in eeschema. But I think this is a completely workable program and I think I can use this to do my own home etched PCBs. Ted
Re: [kicad-users] Newbie to both PCDing and Kicad
something rather odd is going on with your install I think. I've never seen mouse tracks as such, Plenty of messy lines that don't get deleted and such like, but never mouse tracks. Likewise the polygon issue. I take it that you mean when drawing the board outline and such like? One tip regarding that, use the space bar to zero the rel. co-ords, then use the cursor keys as you get back to your starting point. When the co-ords are back to zero hit retun and the polygon should close. You can use the same idea in the module editor as well. Andy On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:45:55 -0700 (PDT) Ted Huntington huntington_...@yahoo.com wrote: Thanks Andy I had to make my own packages - but used the Kicad and the external Libs as the source for the schematic for the SO8 NE555 etc and other common packages I am using. Maybe I will try using devices from the default libs just to see if they connect. I could not set the second point in making a polygon - and therefore could not close or create any polygons, and so I decided to try using the last stable version instead of the current SVN version and hopefully that will solve the connection and polygon problems. Looking more at the refresh - one problem appears to be that the mouse icon leaves tracks - that looks so bad for such a highly developed program - I'm surprised that the developers have not figured out how to repair that - it just requires correctly erasing the mouse icon before moving it - there must be more to it because otherwise they would have solved that. Ted From: Andy Eskelson andyya...@g0poy.co.uk To: kicad-users@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 3:20:44 AM Subject: Re: [kicad-users] Newbie to both PCDing and Kicad Making a pin passive does not change the connection status. It will still require a wire to it. If you really do not want to use a pin, then all you need to do is place a no connect flag on it, (the blue X 9th icon down on the right hand side) Are you using KiCad libraries or stuff imported from other packages? Sometimes that can cause problems. Try a few tests with KiCad only libs and if that improves things, you may need to investigate the other libs that you are using, esp. the layout grid. If you have been making your own libs and mods, be VERY careful about pin names and numbers, the module and libs must match or things will get very confused. My clearance setting is the default 0.006 so this seems to be pointing to problems with your module pad sizes, or as you say things may not work until you sort out the connection issue. Until you get the connections sorted out, PCBnew won't really work as it needs a rats nest to work on. People do a lot more than produce home made PCB's with KiCad, so I think you have only got a few teething problems to sort out. (I only do home PCBs as well, and I have no problems.) If you want to try one of my homebrew circuits give me a mail and I'll send you a suitable project file to play with Andy On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:40:10 -0700 (PDT) Ted Huntington huntington_ted@ yahoo.com wrote: Thanks: I solved my library problems, but still can't connect the wires to the devices. Making a big circular junction that covers the wire and pin doesn't make the connection. I made the pins passive and it still is making a warning unconnected pin. Another nice feature to put on the todo list is: resize wires - that is nice if a person just needs to move a wire over to connect precisely with a pin. In PCBNEW I'm getting Track near pad from the DRC, even with a clearance of .001. I have to turn off the DRC to connect tracks. But then - I also have no rat's nests connections because I can't get the pins to connect in eeschema. But I think this is a completely workable program and I think I can use this to do my own home etched PCBs. Ted _ _ __ Recent Activity * 17 New Members * 1 New Links * 3 New FilesVisit Your Group Yahoo! Finance It's Now Personal Guides, news, advice more. Search Ads Get new customers. List your web site in Yahoo! Search. Support Group Lose lbs together Share your weight- loss successes. .
[kicad-users] Newbie to both PCDing and Kicad
Kicad seems like a very good GNU program to use for PCBs. I was using Eagle - but want to use Open Source. I'm using Build SVN-R1715 (20090413). I have a few questions: 1) I cannot get wires to connect to pins in eeschema- all marked unconnected - but appear to be connected at highest resolution. 2) CVpcb crashes after saving (possibly because I have a library not in project folder?) 3) Module editor cannot delete module (the library is not in the project folder) - gives message: Impossible to get permissions for file '/root/kicad/projects/library/ted_diodes.$$$' (error 2: No such file or directory) and in another window Librariri.cpp: rename err 2 4) Has anybody thought about autorefresh after each graphic activity? - manual refresh is hassle. Very nice program - it looks like I will use this instead of Eagle - and I want to figure out why my pins won't connect. thanks Ted
Re: [kicad-users] Newbie to both PCDing and Kicad
I'm using kicad-2009-02-16-final-CENTOS_4.4.tgz on a SUSE 11.1 system, that works fine. Kicad should be installed under /usr/local/kicad The projects would normally be in a directory under your own user directory.I'm wondering if you have a simple permissions problem by putting your projects under root. Have you done the chmod 755 to the /usr/local/kicad/bin directory as per the install readme? Libraries and modules live in the library and modules directories under: /usr/local/kicad/share/ You do not need the libraries in the project folder. When in use Kicad will create a cache of the libraries and modules and store that in the project directory, but this happens automatically. In order to use additional libraries and modules you need to add them to the system. I found it best to create a mylibs.lib and mymods.mods and keep all my own stuff there, this avoids problems if you ever do an upgrade and accidentally overwrite the libs and mods. Open up eeschema and select preferenceslibrary select add navigate to your own library then select open That will add your library to the list so that you will be able to find the parts you designed. save the preferences You do a similar process for the modules. but start from PCBnew, preferenceslibrary then save the preferences. In both cases this will save the preferences in your current project directory, that means that other projects will not be able to access the new libs and mods unless you go through the same process for them. If you want your libs and mods to be availabe for all projects you need to save the preferences as the default project file. /usr/local/kicad/share/template/kicad.pro The unconnected pins issue. I've had that from time to time. I find that it is important that the gird types match I think the system relies on the grids so that things connect, I ran into this when I designed a part and got things half a grid point off. Kican uses inches as the internal measurement, so make sure the grid is set to inches and try then. Other users might have a better idea about this. Sometimes when I get a really stubborn connection problem a junction spot cures it. Auto refresh, I must admit I've got used to it now. The mouse wheel zooms the display, and taht automatically does a refresh, so I just rotate the wheel one click up and back again. Hope this gives you a few clues. Andy On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:45:37 - Ted Huntington huntington_...@yahoo.com wrote: Kicad seems like a very good GNU program to use for PCBs. I was using Eagle - but want to use Open Source. I'm using Build SVN-R1715 (20090413). I have a few questions: 1) I cannot get wires to connect to pins in eeschema- all marked unconnected - but appear to be connected at highest resolution. 2) CVpcb crashes after saving (possibly because I have a library not in project folder?) 3) Module editor cannot delete module (the library is not in the project folder) - gives message: Impossible to get permissions for file '/root/kicad/projects/library/ted_diodes.$$$' (error 2: No such file or directory) and in another window Librariri.cpp: rename err 2 4) Has anybody thought about autorefresh after each graphic activity? - manual refresh is hassle. Very nice program - it looks like I will use this instead of Eagle - and I want to figure out why my pins won't connect. thanks Ted 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 http://www.kicadlib.org 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 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kicad-develYahoo! Groups Links
Re: [kicad-users] Newbie to both PCDing and Kicad
Thanks: I solved my library problems, but still can't connect the wires to the devices. Making a big circular junction that covers the wire and pin doesn't make the connection. I made the pins passive and it still is making a warning unconnected pin. Another nice feature to put on the todo list is: resize wires - that is nice if a person just needs to move a wire over to connect precisely with a pin. In PCBNEW I'm getting Track near pad from the DRC, even with a clearance of .001. I have to turn off the DRC to connect tracks. But then - I also have no rat's nests connections because I can't get the pins to connect in eeschema. But I think this is a completely workable program and I think I can use this to do my own home etched PCBs. Ted
