kicad-developers team mailing list archive

["Damiano Bolla" <Launchpad.Net@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning you all

Let me explain what happens to me

I am using Kicad for the excellent schematics and PCB support and also  
using FreeRouter since it allows free angle routing and an incredibly  
efficient push and shove

What normally happens is that I place components on the board and then  
export import to/from Freerouter

As far as I can see there are no issues on importing from FreeRouter to  
Kicad, however, the export has one quirk than I am explaining now

- Pads coordinates truncation: There are cases when pad  
dimensions/position is something like 0.89916 and while exporting to DSN  
it gets "rounded"
When this is done Freeroute display an unconnected since the track does  
not end p exactly where it should

The question on Kicad side is this: Is there any of you top developers  
that think that this could/should be fixed/addressed ?

I could have a go at trying to address it, I just wish to avoid working if  
the pull is then denied/ignored (happened before on other projects)

--------- Unrelated, if any of you are interested

I am "adjusting" FreeRouting so the above is less of an issue, what I have  
now is a version that allow the autorouter to "reconnect" the almost  
joined traces

One key to know is that FreeRouting normally zap a point in a segment that  
is colinear , so a segment has only a start-end point.
This is an issue if you have components that have pads on the same net and  
are colinear. Now, at least, it tries to keep the further away points

To join all the almost joined pads there is now a checkbox on autorouter  
that allows you to specify if rip are allowed or not.
If you just do the autoroute pass with no ripoff what happens is that the  
autorouter reconnect the points "almost connected" and does not mess up  
the board.

What I am aiming to is to have an "automatic" push and shove on the  
clearance violations, should be possible (it probably is 99% done), I just  
have to find a way to "enable" it. This is quite useful whan you have to  
"adjust" traces and end up with some clearance violations in the board.

------------------------------------------------

What is the feeling on the matter by you developers ?

Thanks, Damiano