KiCad random questions (was KiCAD Question: Forcing connections with spokes?)

DIY STUFF
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So I am curious if anyone has ever tried this -
Can you force a connection from a pad to a copper plane with a trace by adding 4 spokes to a pad?

spoke question
spoke question1363Ă—832 76.8 KB
will forced spokes on a hand drawn copper layer work
will forced spokes on a hand drawn copper layer work1246Ă—844 88.1 KB

The copper plane is all hand drawn and there is no schematic - just freeforming the circuit based on Peter B. and Dan Conrads Solar Sounder Paper Circuit - Bird, Monk, Train.

If I connect traces from the pad in a + form, will this actually be connected to the copper?

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If the geometry’s connected in the copper layer, it should be connected in the board.

Also I don’t know if this plug would be useful but you might check it out:

Edit to add: Just tried it out. Used it to create a new net and assign a pad to it, then assigned a surrounding zone to it. Now they’re connected.

image
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Looked for a random kicad question thread, this seems like the closest thing so…

New kicad question…is there a way to flip a silkscreen or flip a whole component without flipping the pins?

I’m trying to do an interconnect between two boards and I’m using a 2x8 pinheaders. This is the first time I’ve used 2x. Normally, with 1x pin headers you can flip them around and it will still jive. But with a 2x it locks the pin placements as if it were an IC, which certainly cannot be flipped like that.

Is there an easier way to solve this other then editing all the pins or doing a custom silkscreen?

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Not really sure exactly what you’re asking… I take it you want a 2xN pin header on one board and a 2xN pin socket on another board, and you want pin i (i = 1…2N) of the header to plug into pin i of the socket?

But that’s exactly what happens if you use a pin header footprint and a pin socket footprint.

It does not happen if you try to use a pin header footprint for the pin socket.

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Thanks a load that is definitely what I was doing. I’ve always just used pin header footprint for everything. For 1xN it has no effect whatsoever i guess just being lazy

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Hey all! ive finally taken the plunge and gotten into KiCad, i got a bit Confident and took on a pretty big task for my first real build.
Otem Relliks TeensyDrumv2.

ive gotten pretty much all the way through and have a couple questions.

  1. Do i need to add holes in silkscreen images if they go over hardware edgecuts (Pots, LEDs, Jacks)?
  2. ive made a 2 part board and connected it with headers, is it ok to ignore the “Unconnected Items”?

Also just for fun, Rate my attempt =D

SoCloooose
SoCloooose1088Ă—582 124 KB

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What I do:

I try not to have silkscreen on top of holes, but I don’t think it actually matters. It might be dependent on who fabricates it. I don’t think it’s a problem at JLCPCB.

It’s OK to ignore anything you want to ignore, but it’s harder to stay out of trouble if you do! I want to trust the number KiCad tells me for the unrouted connections — I absolutely would overlook missing connections if I didn’t have that number to look at — so I don’t want unconnected items between boards. My preference, and I know some disagree with it, is to always use different (global) labels on different boards. So for instance on one board ground will be GND, on the other ground will be GND1. The upside is that PCBNew won’t think there are things that should be connected when they shouldn’t be, so it’ll correctly tell me whether all connections have been routed or not. The downside is that Eeschema may think there are things that shouldn’t be connected when they should be and aren’t. That is, if I do that, KiCad has no way of knowing and telling me if I forget to provide a connection between GND and GND1. That said, it’s hard to forget ground and power connections so I’ve mostly stayed out of trouble.

For one example see Richard Holmes / KosmoSlopes · GitLab .