Pads Workbench
Id: pads · Eleventh entry in the workbench dropdown
Pads edits a part's footprint pads, which are stored in the part document itself. A pad matches the symbol's pin with the same label, and a component on a board takes a copy of its part's pads. It runs eCAD's footprint editor in place of the 3D view.
What it offers
Pads creates no features. It adds:
- the footprint editor, drawn in place of the 3D view (The eCAD editor);
- the Inspector pane, for the footprint and its selected pad or graphic, brought to the front when you enter the workbench unless you left another tab in front of it;
- the Qualify pane — like every workbench, while the part declares connection points — where picking a pad selects its point and the Symbol button takes you to the pin;
- the editor's tools in the workbench row (below).
Toolbar buttons
Six of eCAD's own tools, then the snapping grid; Select, Line, Rectangle and Circle look like the sketch tools that do the same thing:
| Button | Id | Offered | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Select | pads.tool.select | always | Picks and drags pads and graphics |
| SMD pad | pads.tool.smd | always | Places a surface-mount pad |
| Through-hole pad | pads.tool.through_hole | always | Places a plated through-hole pad |
| Line | pads.tool.line | always | Draws a line |
| Rectangle | pads.tool.rectangle | always | Draws a silkscreen rectangle (the courtyard is drawn for you, round the pads and silkscreen) |
| Circle | pads.tool.circle | always | Draws a circle |
| Snapping grid | pads.grid | always | Opens the grid a click snaps to: 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25 and 0.5 mm, and the imperial pitches 0.635, 1.27 and 2.54 mm (25, 50 and 100 mil). The one in use is ticked, and the Inspector's Snap drop-down is the same choice |
While a drawing tool is up, a cross on the canvas marks where the next click lands, with its position: the snapped point, which is not always the pointer's. The Inspector warns when two pads of different numbers are closer than 0.2 mm, the board's default clearance, and a line joins them on the canvas; the part is still saved.
Undo and Redo are the main toolbar's own, so the row carries neither. With the pointer over the editor, the mouse wheel zooms without fixed limits; the Zoom buttons have the same range. F fits it (the main toolbar's Zoom to fit does not). Keys reach the editor wherever the pointer is, unless a text field has the keyboard. Pressing Select or Escape puts any tool down.
Choosing this workbench while a sketch is being edited finishes the sketch, as its Finish button does, so the drawing is kept.
Import from KiCad
Pads and their 3D model can come from a KiCad footprint. Press the toolbar's Import button and pick a
.kicad_mod file. The import writes into the open part as one edit, so one Undo takes
all of it away.
- The pads are the footprint's, as this workbench then edits them. A pad rotated by other than a quarter turn is kept as its bounding box, and the review says so.
- The model is the
.stepbeside the.wrlthe footprint names, read from your KiCad 3D-model folder. It becomes one Import 3D Model feature, placed on the pads exactly where KiCad places it. A footprint with no model, or whose model is not in the library, imports without one, and the review names the file it looked for.
A footprint import declares no connection points: a part's connection points come with its symbol's pins. To bring the symbol, the footprint and the model together, with a connection point on each pin's pad, import the symbol from the Symbol workbench; it follows the symbol to its footprint. A part that already has pads is not imported into. The library folders are the Symbol workbench's; see there.