kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Eeli Kaikkonen <eeli.kaikkonen@xxxxxxxxx>]

ti 3. syysk. 2019 klo 21.48 Evan Shultz (evan.shultz@xxxxxxxxx) kirjoitti:

>
> 4. The "X" column is not salient. It is the only column header with a
> popup, and that's required because the function is opaque. Along with the
> comment above about expanding the table, using a more verbose term (or an
> icon?) for this column would be nice.
> 6. I don't see the value of the "Board thickness" textbox at the top left.
> It changes the dielectric layer thicknesses when clicking the Set
> Dielectric Thickness button, but it sets the thickness of all dielectric
> layers equal. I have rarely seen this done in practice and never for an
> impedance-controlled board. This button seems to be mainly of value for
> simple boards with low layer counts. For a 2- or 4-layer board it's not
> much of a burden for the user to set the dielectric thickness manually to
> whatever they want, or leave it alone as the user probably doesn't care,
> and I can't imagine a high layer count board using controlled impedances
> having all dieletric layers with the same thickness. So this button doesn't
> seem useful to me. It's likely I'm daft and just don't get it.
>

I don't know if you're daft or not, but likely you just didn't get it :)
You already saw the X column. It locks the thickness. When you calculate
automatically the space left after adding locked thicknesses together is
used evenly for non-locked items. You can for example lock the thin layers
in a 4-layer board and let KiCad calculate the core up to the user defined
total thickness.

I agree with your comments about visuals and usability. I can't say about
the technical aspects, other than it would be cool to have layer
thicknesses in the 3D view (as was suggested in the forum).

Eeli Kaikkonen