kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Håvard Espeland <gus@...>]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 08:03:23PM +0100, jean-pierre.charras@... wrote:
> Autorouters expect plated holes, and hobbyists are never happy with
> auto routers.
> Your problem exists also for students (I am a teacher at the
> university).
> Due to the process used, boards designed by my students cannot have
> plated holes.
> (Process to make plated holes is a *very* complex process).
> On the other hand, these boards are elementary and do not require an
> auto router.
> But the advantage is they can have boards they have designed (with
> Kicad of course) one hour (or less) after the design is finished.
> May be do you consider routing "by hand".

For the last two years, I have been using kicad for all my boards, and I
really like the program. Most of them are handrouted with occasional use
of freerouter with manual fixups to move vias away from under components
and only attach tracks to the opposite side of the component for modules
where I can not solder on both sides. Autorouting is very adantageous
when I have limited time (design and etching the same day), and
espescially if I need to modify the circuit after routing.

The lack of autorouting boards without through-plating has annoyed me
since I started using kicad, and the patch I wrote significantly speeds
up the design process when doing one-off prototype boards. Personally, it
does not matter much if this feature is merged or not since I will just
continue to patch it into kicad for my work, but I am quite confident
that there are very many users out there that will benefit from this
feature.

Would it be an acceptable solution to add a new attribute to the
components which indicate if the autorouter can attach tracks on any
layer (as it is now and default), or only to pads which is on the
opposite side of the component ?

This will not affect DRC or anything else since the pads will remain of
type standard and the board will be as handrouted with knowledge of
which pads will be connected on both sides, and which will not.

-- 
Håvard Espeland