[SOLVED] Lone vias and thermal relief

[GarthyD]

I am looking to insert some lone vias to attach ground planes after a pour. I am aware that KiCad doesn't support this presently. I am aware of two main workarounds: Always draw tracks, and make a footprint with a single via in it. I am using the second solution. However I've noticed that this interacts poorly with thermal relief when doing a pour- each of these footprint vias will have thermal relief applied, which I *don't* want.

Is there some way to exclude footprints/pads/vias from thermal relief? Or perhaps a better solution to use for lone vias?

[donotdespisethesnake]

Yes, set the properties of the pad in the footprint to solid. Pad Properties -> Pad connection - solid, This then overrides whatever is used by the zone fill.

[GarthyD]

Thankyou. Worked like a charm. I had thought I had tried all of the options, but I must have missed that one. This will save me much time, many thanks.

For anyone else with the same issue, the option can be found here: "Pad Properties" / "Local Clearance and Settings" / "Copper Zones" / "Pad Connection", and set to "Solid" (mine was originally to "From parent footprint"). There is no visual feedback in the preview, but it does work. Accept the change, update the footprints in pcbnew (via the footprint properties, then "Change Footprint", which can be used to update all footprints of a certain type), and then redo the copper pour ("B").