[HN Gopher] Melting KiCad ___________________________________________________________________ Melting KiCad Author : donquichotte Score : 132 points Date : 2022-04-21 12:43 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (mitxela.com) (TXT) w3m dump (mitxela.com) | jaytaylor wrote: | If anyone else wondering what is a "DRC problem": | | Design Rule Checking (DRC) is a process used to identify errors | and mismatches such as spacing & trace widths in a PCB | design/layout. | Alupis wrote: | To elaborate, you specify design rules for your PCB design and | layout based off what your chosen fabrication company's | abilities are. Each company's fab process is slightly different | and will have varying requirements or specifications you must | meet in order to have a successfully produced board. | | Things like minimum/maximum trace widths, minimum/maximum via | size, component separation distances, etc. | | This often means you need to choose a fab before you design | your board... and changing to a different fab later on might | mean you have to redesign part/all of your board (particularly | if you are pushing tolerances). Each fab has different | abilities and requirements. | etaioinshrdlu wrote: | This looks so much better. There are actual engineering reasons | to prefer it this way listed in the article, and although they | are pretty unimportant, why not make it the best we can? 45 | degree angles as a rule feel rather cargo-cultish. | a9h74j wrote: | Great work and writeup. | | In terms of the pictured old pcbs with rounded traces, I wonder | if when applying tape "on film" or "on mylar" it was rather easy, | when applying narrow fixed-width tape for a track, to bend and | follow curves while doing so. Thus, I presume, one could both | avoid cutting the tape at bends, and follow smooth curves already | drafted by hand. | | Here's what came up for me with a search for datak tape: | | http://www.philmore-datak.com/mc/Page%20274.pdf | eternityforest wrote: | I've pretty much given up on KiCad. LibrePCB has a much easier | UI, KiCad is essentially the Vim of PCBs. | | Libre is already good enough in all ways except the fact you have | to make a lot of parts yourself(Which is pretty fast, but still), | for anything simple. | | Anything it can't do, is probably a high budget kind of thing and | you can afford the really good tools(But Libre might get there | too, if it keeps going for another 5 years) | roland35 wrote: | I don't think making your own parts is really a downside... For | any commercial application actually making the part footprints | is such a small part of the total engineering effort required | for supply chain management. On top of that, it is important to | really understand every pin! | analog31 wrote: | I'm tempted to give it a try. I've been using ExpressPCB at | work, and something called FreePCB at home. The boards that I | make at home tend to be simple 2-layer analog circuits. | | I tried KiCad, and it seems like just getting to the starting | point of beginning to route a PCB requires an enormous amount | of sheer physical labor that left me with an eyestrain | headache. | | I'm glad we've got engineers to do this work, but I also kind | of pity them, and have gained a better understanding of why | projects take so long. I get it that at the end of the day, | they need to be able to push a button and have a finished PCB | stuffed with parts drop out of an automated machine in China. | But I don't, and I think that for folks like hobbyists and | hackers, going directly from a hand drawn schematic to manual | layout in a simple PCB editor may still be the winning ticket. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Yeah, KiCad is a fucking hurdle. ExpressPCB was so much | easier. With KiCad you really have to do things in s specific | order (beginning with the schematic). Trying to "wing it" in | KiCad is a doomed path. | | I forced myself though to use/learn KiCad for a keyboard | project. Worked. I've done another 3 or 4 new PCBs since and | each one gets easier (no surprise). | gaze wrote: | In ease of use KiCad seems to be on par with pads, orcad, | altium, etc. Not all that different. It just lacks a lot of | features. | 01100011 wrote: | I recently did my first KiCad project and found it to be quite | cool. Most of my previous experience was 10+ years ago with | Orcad and whatever free EDA tools were around then, so I'm not | up to date regarding KiCad's competition but I didn't find much | to complain about. The issues I had were quickly resolved with | a rich assortment of how-to videos and tutorials. | | I had to make a part using KiCad as well, and even that process | was straightforward. I'm excited to work on my next layout | project now after having used it. Bonus points for the 3D | rendering mode which worked spectacularly on Ubuntu out of the | box. It was very handy to visualize the finished board before | assembly. | dvdkon wrote: | I have to say KiCad 6 is much nicer, since Pcbnew and Eeschema | _finally_ have the same UI. Having made a lot of mistakes on my | first "big" design, resulting in multiple redraws, I actually | find KiCad quite usable. | | LibrePCB sadly doesn't have hierarhical schematics, and they've | saved me a lot of time and effort. I hear Horizon EDA now has | them, though, I'll have to try it. | zxcvgm wrote: | The author has also made a video about it recently: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euJgtLcWWyo | | It reminds me of Boldport, who made project kits that were also | works of art [0]. The funky PCB traces and shapes were all hand- | drawn, I believe, rather than drawn up in a regular EDA program. | | [0] https://boldport.com/shop?category=Soldering+projects | fxtentacle wrote: | It seems all of it is sold out. But yes, looks marvelous on the | pictures. | unit-vector wrote: | I recently just finished a custom PCB art piece -> | https://www.behance.net/gallery/137418457/NGC-2336 | | It was an interesting learning experience that brought me much | closer to being able to create functional PCBs. The 45deg | angled traces however are just such a part of the classic | aesthetic it's hard to go for something else. I'll definitely | try some more exotic ones in the future. | amelius wrote: | Nice but there is one feature I want more than this: automatic | placement & routing. | Alupis wrote: | I thought I wanted/needed this too when doing my first design. | Having a few under my belt now, I firmly believe it would be | more of a problem than not. | | Automatic placement/routing would become a crutch that would | prevent folks from learning what actually is necessary to | design a half-decent PCB. | | Folks that need auto-routing won't be aware/skilled enough to | notice and fix problems before sending the design off to be | fab'ed, and then will spend unnecessary amounts of time | debugging a broken board only to learn what they should have | before sending it off... or will grow frustrated and think the | software sucks or something. | | There's a lot more to PCB design than just connecting nets | together, and skipping the step where you learn how to do it | properly would be like refusing to learn to code and instead | only want to use no-code UI widgets. It will bite you hard one | day and you will lack the skillset to know why. | | Besides that... auto-placement is really an impossible task, | even for the "big guys" like Altium. The editor cannot possibly | know what's inside the component's data sheet, or infer best | practices etc. Things like this one particular switching boost | converter chip requires a capacitor on the output no further | than 0.2" away... etc. So any auto-placement or auto-route | feature will be half-baked at it's best, even if done well. | charcircuit wrote: | I was able to autoroute several years ago. | nomel wrote: | Does this work well yet for high speed and/or high current | circuits, following good layout for ground bounce, etc? | | Did yours require labelling traces as low, med, and high | frequency? | charcircuit wrote: | I can't speak about how well it worked. I did not have to | label traces. It just connected the stuff that was supposed | to be together with traces. | madengr wrote: | mNovak wrote: | I really like the action plugins in KiCad; it gives the ability | to do things that users want (hence bothered to make the plugin) | but that the maintainers don't always agree with/prioritize. | | I do wish there was some kind of central directory of plugins | though. | q-big wrote: | Relevant: | | TopoR, an EDA program developed and maintained by the Russian | company Eremex: | | > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopoR | | "The most recognizable feature of TopoR is the absence of | preferred routing directions, which results in unusual looking | PCBs." | | > https://www.eremex.com/products/topor/ | yair99dd wrote: | mitxela discusses topor in the video. i used topoR in the past. | it has does have import-export options from many EDAs, here its | imported from eagle. here is a gif of it at work. | http://i.imgur.com/66S5KMv.gif | imtringued wrote: | I thought about how lazy I am and how difficult and a pain in | the ass it is to design a schematic, how annoying it is to pick | components and make sure they are properly rated. Routing is | almost trivial except for some of the tricky high frequency and | analog stuff. | | I would prefer some sort of "Smart EDA" that automatically | understands that I want to place a switch mode power supply | with X constraints here, then automatically rates resistors, | capacitors, inductors, mosfets, etc and automatically picks | manufactured components from mouser. I could get behind that. | If the software does that part I will gladly do component | placement and routing myself! | nomel wrote: | > which results in unusual looking PCBs | | I really love things like this that break the non-technical | cargo-cultish norms in a technical field. There's no electrical | reason to wiggle wires around at 45 degrees, but you're looked | down upon and made to feel bad if you don't. Technically, it | just add parasitics. | | One could claim "it's pride/art", well why constrain yourself | to 45 degree lines if you're making art!? | jtfinlay wrote: | I love how these boards look, the design is really smooth and | unique. | | Are most manufacturers equipped to print boards with these curves | - would it impact the cost of printing? | | I've been working on a web-based drc & renderer and the math to | support these looks like a fun challenge. | jccooper wrote: | Etching masks are usually digitally printed; they shouldn't | care about the shape of the traces. | Taniwha wrote: | I'm quite excited by this - it's my personal PCB design | preference, usually done by hand in Eagle ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-22 23:00 UTC)