Hi all,
I'm new to KiCad and am starting my first board design with it. I am using the
SVN2508 version, which I think is the latest, under WinXP SP3. I like to use
libraries I've created myself so that I know the physical dimensions of the
footprints are correct for the actual parts I'm using. I read through the
KiCad documentation to determine the best practices for this. In section 11.11
of the PCBNew manual, it says this:
"It is recommended to create libraries indirectly, by creating one or more
auxiliary circuit boards that constitute
the 'source' of (part of) the library, as follows:
Create a circuit board in A4 format, in order to be able to print easily to
scale (scale = 1).
Create the modules that the library will contain on this circuit board.
The library itself will be created with the File/Archive footprints/Create
footprint archive command."
So I decided to use this approach. The technique I used was to load a module
into the module editor from an existing library, modify it to fit my
requirements, setting the "Reference" field to the name I want for the module.
When I finish editing the module, I use the "Insert module into current board"
command in the module editor. Then, when I've created all the modules and I'm
ready to save the new library, I use "File/Archive footprints/Create footprint
archive" from PCBNew per the documentation above.
After setting the module search path to the newly created library, I still
wasn't able to see the newly created modules in CVpcb. I tracked this down,
and found that when I load a module from an existing library, edit it as
described above, then insert it into the auxiliary board, the module name ends
up being that of the module I started with in the original library, not the
reference field entered for the new module as described above. In trying to
figure out how to fix this, I couldn't find a way to specify the module name
prior to inserting it into the board when starting out by modifying a module in
an existing library. So I ended up deleting the modules from the newly created
library. Then I added them to the library one by one using "Load module from
current board" and "Save module in working library" from the module editor.
When doing it this way, one is prompted for the module name and the saved
modules of course have the correct name in the library.
This is all okay, as I can use a revised approach by creating the library
first, then inserting each module into the auxiliary board one by one after the
fact. But this is not how the documentation says to do it. This causes me to
believe that I'm somehow missing some important detail of how to specify the
module name when using the above described procedure ("Load module from lib",
edit the module, change its "reference" field, then "Insert module into current
board"). If so, how can I specify a new name for the module?
Thanks,
Andy C
