kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Collin Anderson <metacollin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I do lots of DC/DC stuff with power dissipation one of my primary concerns - so I stitch and I stitch A LOT.  

These are just some honest thoughts from someone who has done boards with a several hundred stitched vias on a board no bigger than 25mmx50mm.

So, stitching that is done in any way using the actual router is unbelievably painful.  

1.  Vias can normally be pushed and shoved.  Which is great for routing vias, but both annoying and extremely (but pointlessly) computationally expensive if the PNS router gets too close.  If the PNS router were James Bond, it's arch nemesis is the evil but charismatic Dr. Giant Grid of Vias Right Next to Each Other But With Gaps To Move Around A Bit.  

2.  Vias that behave in all the ways they behave from an interface standpoint are not very conducive to stitching.  Stitching does not involve routing at all, you're stitching two copper planes together.  There is no advantage I can see to using the routing tool/mode to stitching, but several disadvantages. 

I've yet to see a proposed solution that is faster or easier than having a handful of "via" footprints, which are simply single through holes without any mask layers, and placing one manually, setting the net, and going nuts with copy % paste. 

The only problem with this is that footprints are also not ideal and will get deleted with other "extra" footprints if you reimport the next list, stuff like that. 

Via stitching done via the routing tool is just a huge pain in the butt.  

I do like the idea of automatically connecting unconnected holes that span pours of the same net though.  That's a good idea.  What would be awesome, in my opinion, is doing this but in a way where one is not limited to Vias specifically, or perhaps an alternative stitch tool with different behaviors than the normal routing tool.

I know a few times, I've forgotten to set the net for my initial via footprint, or set it to the wrong one, only to realize this after placing 200 of them.  Painful mistake that could be solved with something like this :). 

On Sep 24, 2016, at 6:06 AM, Heikki Pulkkinen <hei6mail@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Hi everybody,
> 
> This is my suggestion to via stitching without any tracks. It connects unconnected vias in different copper pours witch has same netcode. Adding vias is normal routing process without routing tracks. Start - Change Layer - End. Tool that do those things automatically would be good, so you can add all vias in same layer. After adding vias, run "Fill or Refill All Zones" that "Clenup tracks and vias" do not remove partly connected vias.
> 
> 
> Heikki
> <diffs_via.txt>
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