Via stitching

[Squonk42]

Hi Lachlan,

Most of my boards are using via stitching for GND planes. This causes a lot of ugly GND VPDEV0 devices to be added to the schematics.

It looks like it is possible to have via stitching in the layout only, please check this video and forum post:
https://contextualelectronics.com/learning/via-stitching-in-kicad/
https://forum.kicad.info/t/protip-nicer-via-stitching/1103/21

Would it be possible to apply this method during the conversion instead of creating these ugly parts?

[lachlanA]

The software checks to see if the via is connected to a PAD, if it's not it converts the via to a PAD
so it dose not lose the net info, so your fills and and design check check will work.
You can turn the via to pad conversion off, give that a try, it won't change the sch file then,
by adding extra pad's to it or change the unconnected via's to pads on PCB, but you will have a "no name" net left over when you import Eagle the PCB file into kicad, which will look ok, until you save it, and bring it back in, then you will get DRC errors. or the flood fills will not connect to the via.
The trick they are talking about in the video will work, but not from the Eagle side sad to say.
As I would have to figure out in my script if the via's were part of a fill array, delete them from
the Eagle PCB, make a Lib part for them in KiCad, then add them to KiCad PCB file, all outside of KiCad
Just trying to figure out if the via's are part of a array in Eagle would be bad news. It would be a nightmare
of the first order to get this 100% working.
I have asked the Developers for KiCad to allow via's and track's to keep there net name's if unconnected
to a pad, but the answer was no. Also note that, the KiCad sch file has the same problem, if the net name is
moved away from the wire, it losses the net name, and default to auto generated names, all with out warning. thats why if you zoom in, you see I added net label's every where to get around this problem. it's a real pain when you have multi sheets. Once again I have been over ruled by the KiCad developers on both matters. Sad to say. Perhaps if there a storm of protest, they may think again.
but it has been talked about many time's on the Developers mailing list over the years and the answer
always comes back NO !! :(

Lachlan

Lachlan