Via cannot connect to zone with track

[Christian Lerche Sørensen]

Hi people

First of, thanks for a almost perfect software!

I now this is probably being brought up again.
In Eagle you have the possibility to attach a via to a zone/pour, without any track.
This is a real nice feature to have when designing RF immune systems as well as easy GND pour.

I noticed that if I place a Via using the track tool, it actually connects the the right layer (GND in my case).
But as soon as I run the DRC, which I do often, the via looses connection to the zone.

I know, I could just leave the DRC alone, but this is neccesary for me to be able to check the design throughout the process.

I've even tried to edit the kicad_pcb file and connect the net on each via to the correct net without success.

Is it something you have planned for?

Thanks in advance.

Lerche

[Chris Gibson (chris-w-gibson)]

A reasonable work around for this is to make yourself a library footprint consisting of nothing more than a pad, same dimensions as your required via. In the pad details (in the footprint editor), set it to net GND. You can place that component anywhere you like and it will connect to the GND zone and not cause any DRC issues.

The only problem is it throws up errors about extra components but you can learn to ignore those.

[Christian Lerche Sørensen (lerche1989)]

Chris - Wow, why didn't I think of that?? I always make footprints for all kinds of non-electric stuff!! :D

Great, thanks man!

Lerche

[Nimo (nimo-labs)]

Hi Chris
Thanks for the great comment, I've just been using it with great success on my latest board.
I have come across a minor annoyance with it though, although the DRC doesn't remove the new "vias", if you make changes to the schematic that involve re-importing the netlist with "Delete Extra Footprints" checked then predictably it removes all of my nicely placed thermal vias :-(

This may be something that we just have to live with, however I was wondering if there was a way of telling Kicad that this component should be kept? Just thinking as I'm typing, setting the footprint to locked would probably do it, though that's a bit of a pain if you have lots of them...

Anyway, thanks for a great solution and a great product :-)

Nick

[Nimo (nimo-labs)]

One more thought, my apologies for multiple posts, I've not used the Bitmap2component feature in kicad, put presumably if it works as literally as it's name suggests, then there is presumably some method of preventing these "components" from being removed during DRC, Netlist import events etc.?

Nick

[Chris Gibson (chris-w-gibson)]

Bitmaps get deleted by netlist import if delete extra footprints is selected.

I've dealt with this by hacking the source code so that this section (and the netlist error reporting) ignores parts with "#" as the component designator.

All my additional vias and any bitmaps get given # as the designator. I'm not sure how you could do anything similar without getting your hands dirty in the code.

[Christian Lerche Sørensen (lerche1989)]

Nicholas: I always add the vias as the last thing, because of this problem.
If i make any changes, without a lot of components being replaced, I delete the footprints manually.

Maybe locking the footprint will cause it not to be removed? Will have to do a test soon.

Lerche