Thanks, That's what I thought, I feel it should be easier, I've been playing with sprint layout a bit. it does seem easy to use, 1)place components, 2)wire using rubber band just click at connection points, 3)click on auto router, click on rubber band to replace with a routed trace. no schematic needed. it does one trace at a time some say not supper intelligent but so far from what I see it will speed things up. I have read some good things about sprint-layout but I'm only running the demo so I haven't had any boards made yet the price does seem good. does anyone have any comments on it?? Again I wish Kicad was easier to use, perhaps it was designed more toward the pros then the amateur, hobby type?? thanks victor
----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 4:02 AM Subject: Re: [kicad-users]Place Then autorouting On 14 Apr 2007 at 17:54, Victor Faria wrote: > At this point I do not care about schematic or even naming the pins/connections on pins If I put a rubber band there let it route. > Is this possible with kicad now??? If so are is there a tutorial on this?? > > > Thank you > > Victor In order to see the rubber band, you need to create the schematic in Eeschema (you may be able to import a schematic from another program) and save the netlist. The netlist must contain module names for all of the components. This can be done by clicking the "Run CvPCB" button on the top. Once all components have existing modules assigned to them, save the netlist. Now run PCBNew. Read in the netlist you created in Eeschema. PCBNew will place all of the modules on top of each other. Press the "Mode Module" button (next to last button on top toolbar). Then in a blank area of the board, click the right mouse button. Then select the "Move all modules" selection. This will separate all the modules.(don't know why this is not the default upon reading the netlist). You can now move them to where you want. When you move them, you will see the rubber banding. I have not tried the autorouter. I did try the autoplace ONCE. It took a very long time and placed the modules in a really weird way. Manual placing with the rubber banding is quite easy. The DRC will tell you how many routes are left to complete. It also won't let you (unless you turn it off) mis-route. It can also be set with the required clearance between traces and pads, etc, and will not let you violate that clearance. Dave - WB6DHW <http://users.wildblue.net/wb6dhw>
