Charles Steinkuehler
2014-04-27 19:28:14 UTC
I'm trying to do a PCB layout using KiCad, and I am having problems
creating assembly drawings. This is a SMT board, so typically small
discrete parts like resistors just have a dash on the silkscreen layer,
and the assembly layer contains a box outline of the part with the
reference designator. See any of the standard IPC-7351B chip resistor
or capacitor library parts for typical examples:
http://landpatterns.ipc.org/default.asp
My first problem is there does not appear to be any sort of assembly
layer. It looks basically impossible to add or change layers in KiCad,
so I'm using the F.Adhes and B.Adhes layers instead.
Now I need to get the reference designators plotting on the assembly
(a.k.a. Adhes) layer, but I can't seem to figure out how. It looks like
reference designators will *ONLY* and *EVER* print on the silkscreen
layer. Is that correct?!?
As a work-around, I figured I would try adding attributes to the PCB and
get that text printing on the layer I want, but that doesn't seem to be
possible either!?! Only the Reference and Value fields seem to be
present in the PCB, and any attributes I added in the schematic have
disappeared.
So the final and only solution I can figure out is to just place free
text where I want, which seems like a really bad way to do something as
simple as an assembly drawing.
It feels like I'm missing some big idea of how KiCad is supposed to
work, because it doesn't seem like this should be so hard. Where am I
going wrong?
creating assembly drawings. This is a SMT board, so typically small
discrete parts like resistors just have a dash on the silkscreen layer,
and the assembly layer contains a box outline of the part with the
reference designator. See any of the standard IPC-7351B chip resistor
or capacitor library parts for typical examples:
http://landpatterns.ipc.org/default.asp
My first problem is there does not appear to be any sort of assembly
layer. It looks basically impossible to add or change layers in KiCad,
so I'm using the F.Adhes and B.Adhes layers instead.
Now I need to get the reference designators plotting on the assembly
(a.k.a. Adhes) layer, but I can't seem to figure out how. It looks like
reference designators will *ONLY* and *EVER* print on the silkscreen
layer. Is that correct?!?
As a work-around, I figured I would try adding attributes to the PCB and
get that text printing on the layer I want, but that doesn't seem to be
possible either!?! Only the Reference and Value fields seem to be
present in the PCB, and any attributes I added in the schematic have
disappeared.
So the final and only solution I can figure out is to just place free
text where I want, which seems like a really bad way to do something as
simple as an assembly drawing.
It feels like I'm missing some big idea of how KiCad is supposed to
work, because it doesn't seem like this should be so hard. Where am I
going wrong?
--
Charles Steinkuehler
cstein-6CbHrGesSprQT0dZR+***@public.gmane.org
Charles Steinkuehler
cstein-6CbHrGesSprQT0dZR+***@public.gmane.org