I am a new user of Kicad. My previous experience was using ExpressPCB to produce the boards I have needed in developing several applications. I have successfully worked through the "Kicad Step by tutorial by David Jahshan so I have a fair idea of how to proceed, especially drawing schematics using eeschema and libedit. Of course I have some questions.
First, is there a way to suppress the component names. I am talking about the names that appear with the components when placed on the schematic. For example, when using a two pin connector from the conn library the word CONN-2 appears. I would like to NOT see these names on my schematic. To my eye, it gives the schematic a very cluttered appearence. I have even tried to delete them with NO success. Second, in the above mentioned tutorial, I sort of lost my way starting at step 149 which is where the ground connections are made between MYCONN-3 and U1 Pin 8. I ended up with a copper pour that did NOT fill the area I bounded in step 155. My fill does not look like the one in the tutorial. I bounded well outside the component areas but the fill barely got past the pins on the PIC. I am not sure why. Where is the board size set? Third, I noticed that there are quite a few libraries posted in the files section here. Should I consider grabbing any of them? If so, which ones. I am usually NOT interested in special components, but general components are often useful. I perfer to build my own special parts as I did in ExpressPCB. In fact, I have already started my own component library with the special parts I use all the time. Any enlightenment will be appreciated Vic *____________________________________________________________________________________________* *Victor Fraenckel KC2GUI victorf ATSIGN windreader DOT com** *
