RE: [N8VEM-S100:4568] KiCad or ??

Hi John,

Moving a via, or even reallocating traces can only be done when you turn off the rule checking:
uncheck - Preferences/General/ (options) "Enforce design rules when routing"

Then you are free to route traces and connect them anyway you like (you can even turn off the snap function for more control).
When you are done, rebuild the board connectivity, this will re-assign the traces & vias to their correct Netlist names.
Click Netlist - "Rebuild Board Connectivity"

Then you can turn the routing rules back on and continue with business as usual.

---

I don't think I'm better at routing... I just think it takes more practice. The first traces are always the hardest because you have no idea where anything else is going. That's where the autorouter was helpful in my case to help suggest the routes. I tried the autorouter, but then ripped up most of it's work as I was re-routing it's "chaos" to make the routing more elligant if that's possible?

I think it gets easier as you do more, but on the other hand, time is short and if a computer can route a board well enough that it works, then saving time is a good thing.

Regards,
Josh

From: mon...@vitasoft.org
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:4568] KiCad or ??
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 15:25:04 -0700

You guys must be far better than me at Routing. I had the hardest time just pushing & shoving a few traces on the 68K board. In the end I just deleted the trace and let the xxx program redo it.

In KiCad how do you move a via. If I select one, it moves one side but I cannot connect the other side back to the original trace. Seem you cannot connect a via to a dead end trace.

For complex boards I think it would be difficult for most of us to hand do them. Does anybody know if the KiCad writers are going to enlarge the KiCad program to auto-route like DipTrace etc.

John

From: n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Crusty OMO
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2014 3:01 PM
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:4566] KiCad or ??

Kyle,

I tend to agree with you. I tried the autorouter on the 8080 CPU board and it made Swiss Cheese.
But it was helpful for me in one way, it gave me ideas of how to route my traces, then I ripped up it's mess and put the down a little neater.
There was even some issues, it could not route 6 traces, which I then did after I cleaned up it's mess.

I think it depends on one's experience level. On one hand, it makes sense to just let the computer do the work, save some time.
But in my case, I had to rip up it's work, because it could not complete the board.

Cheers,
Josh

Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 13:28:48 -0500
Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:4556] KiCad or ??
From: kyle...@gmail.com
To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com

On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 1:14 PM, yoda <yo...@r2d2.org> wrote:

Has it been decided what we are going to do about the lack of routing software because of the issue with freerouting.net? I can go either way (I have squirreled away the java code - though it might make people nervous with the legal implications) - DipTrace does not look too bad if we can use the non profit version of the software.

I ask because I am going to start doing some prototyping and don't want to have to enter the schematics twice

Thanks

Dave

CERN has taken on a good chunk of KiCad maintenance lately, and has added many great features. I highly recommend sticking with KiCad and see how it grows.

I am personally confused by the need for an autorouter. Routing by hand tends to take less time than the autorouter and offers much better results in terms of via count, and address/data lines and other more sensitive traces (when operating at higher speeds) can be matched to each other. For a 4-layer board with BGAs and other high density boards, I can see why some may want an autorouter. But even for a 486, this seems overkill.

Kyle

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