Oval Pads/Pins on elements

[nobody]

First of all I would like to thank you for delivering such a nice software.I am using your software for last two years and it is improving by the day.
I would like to request two feature addition:
1) Oval Pad/Pins on elements
2) Selectable Layer Print outs: I should be able to select the layers for which the print files are generated.

Thank you.
Amit

[Colin D Bennett (colinb)]

OK, this is two separate feature requests in one report.

I will speak to 1) at least since that's the one in the title.

Oval pads surrounding pins can be achieved by overlaying an SMT pad over the pin in the footprint element. See <http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Mar-2009/msg00318.html> and DJ Delorie's response in <http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Mar-2009/msg00331.html>.

You have to create custom footprints for it (unless you find someone else's oval-pad footprints), but it's quite easy to do (assuming you have learned the basic footprint creation/editing process, which is currently somewhat non-intuitive for new users).

[Erich (a1039181)]

https://github.com/erichVK5/KicadModuleToGEDA

is a utility which will convert obround (oval or rounded) pins/pads into pads with rounded ends in PCB.

If you find a kicad module ( = footprint) with obround pads, you can convert it to a PCB footprint with this utility.

[littlelion (the-littlelion)]

Refering to the oval pins:

if I do it how suggested with overlayed pads, then I end up with pins on the paste layer. That should not be. Anyway, this could be solved by tagging the pads with the nopaste flag. But this results in hundreds of unnecessary warnings.

So, I suggest either
1) to add the possibility to create oval pins (or rectangular - if the square flag is present)
or
2) to handle all pins and pads with the same pin number as one pin (or pad). Unfortunately a group of pads should not appear on the paste layer, if at least one pin is member of it.

In case 2) a DRC check should give an error if differently numbered pins/pads are shorted, or groups with equal pin number are not connected to each other.