I created a little script that loads the KiCad centroid file that contains positions and rotations of components, and checks the position of pin 1 and generates a figure which you can see below (the white rectangles represent pin 1).
Eventually, hand soldering surface mount components becomes a pain, especially if you're doing small manufacturing runs. It's much easier to work with solder paste and a hotplate. Joints are higher quality, and you can manufacture more boards at once. If it was good enough to get Sparkfun started, it's certainly good enough for us! Working with solder paste does require a stencil, though. The stencil contains precisely sized holes which allow solder paste to be precision applied to the metal pads on your PCB. There are many companies which will provide cheap and high quality stencils, but if you have access to a laser cutter, there's no reason you can't do this yourself.
There are a lot of guides out there for creating SVG stencils from Eagle, so I'll be covering KiCad in this tutorial. Additionally, the laser cutter I have access to at the LVL1 Hackerspace is a Full Spectrum laser which can cut directly from Inkscape, so I'll be basing this tutorial on Inkscape.
How to generate the BOM and Centroid file from KiCAD Jin Lei 2020-08-31T11:46:55+00:00 How to generate the BOM and Centroid file from KiCAD In this tutorial, we will tell you about the steps to generate BOM(Bill of Materials) and CPL(component placement list, as known as a Centroid file/Pick and place file) in KiCAD. I use KiCad in a VM that only has KiCad in it with the hope that the VM and that version of KiCad can still run in 20 years. $ endgroup $ – b degnan Mar 10 '16 at 15:36 $ begingroup $ I also added into version control -cache.lib file even is generated because when I lose libraries/modules then I can use as fallback. Now move the file to where KiCad expects it. The footprint libraries table file (on Windows 10) is located in the AppData folder similar to: 'C: Users Nathan AppData Roaming kicad fp-lib-table'. You'll want to overwrite the file that is there. Component placement is extracted from files generated from the EDA suite —notably the Gerber files, the centroid file(s) and the bill-of-materials. The application visualizes the component placement and converts the files (with corrections, where applicable) for further automated processing.
Install microsoft print to pdf windows 7. Generate gerbers from your completely routed KiCad PCB project. There are a lot of good guides out there for getting to this point in KiCad.
and a collection of resources here: https://meatandnetworking.com/w/Kicad_Resources
Open your PCB in a program like Gerbv. Any gerber viewer capable of outputting to SVG is alright for this, but I like gerbv the best. You'll want to open the solder paste layer, which KiCad names by default to something like 'pcbFileName-SoldP_Front.gtp'.
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Export to SVG, put the file anywhere you like. In Linux, you have to manually add the SVG file extension.
Open the file in Inkscape. Parallels desktop 12 mac crack.
Centroid File Kicad Download
Ungroup the objects by right-clicking on a pad or line and selecting 'Ungroup.'
Open the 'Fill and Stroke' menu.
Clear the 'Fill'.
Turn on 'Stroke' and set it to a color that your laser cutter likes.
Our full spectrum laser will try to cut the inside and the outside of the stroke if it's too thick. .1mm is thin enough that our laser cutter software will only cut the outside of the stroke.
Centroid File Kicad Extension
Before proceeding, you can delete the board outline, since it's unnecessary.
Centroid File Kicad
Centroid File Kicad Download
Ungroup the objects by right-clicking on a pad or line and selecting 'Ungroup.'
Open the 'Fill and Stroke' menu.
Clear the 'Fill'.
Turn on 'Stroke' and set it to a color that your laser cutter likes.
Our full spectrum laser will try to cut the inside and the outside of the stroke if it's too thick. .1mm is thin enough that our laser cutter software will only cut the outside of the stroke.
Centroid File Kicad Extension
Before proceeding, you can delete the board outline, since it's unnecessary.
Centroid File Kicad
Select all the objects, and open the 'Transform' menu under 'Object.' Under the 'Scale' tab, MAKE SURE that 'Apply to each object seperately' is CHECKED. This maintains the centroids of all your pads. You'll have to play around a little bit to get this value just right. Decreasing the size of the features is necessary due to the thickness of the stencil material. The thicker the material, the more you'll need to reduce the size of each feature. For overhead transparency plastic, 90% is just about right.
Generate Gerber File Kicad
Now you've got a finished stencil SVG, suitable for lasering. In a future post, I'll show off how to soldering using paste and a hotplate.
