9 ms·
Melting KiCad
- zxcvgm 4y agoThe author has also made a video about it recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euJgtLcWWyo 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 https://boldport.com/shop?category=Soldering+projects
- fxtentacle 4y agoIt seems all of it is sold out. But yes, looks marvelous on the pictures.
- unit-vector 4y agoI recently just finished a custom PCB art piece -> https://www.behance.net/gallery/137418457/NGC-2336 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 45° 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.
- gompertz 4y agoThe Boldport kits were designed with PCBmod-e (https://pcbmode.com/ https://pcbmode.com/), which was created by Boldport's founder Saar Drimer.
- Taniwha 4y agoI'm quite excited by this - it's my personal PCB design preference, usually done by hand in Eagle
- IshKebab 4y agoYou should try some other alternatives Eagle is really really bad and KiCAD is quite bad. Horizon EDA is decent and I've heard good things about LibrePCB but not tried it. DesignSpark PCB is also a fairly reasonable option. Certainly better than Eagle and a better UX than KiCAD. Not open source, but not limited in any way like most commercial options are.
- Taniwha 4y agoI've used Eagle for years, built big 8 layer boards in it so it's the thing I understand and can use for all its faults - if I'm going to put the time in to relearn something it's likely going to be KiCad (because I can fix stuff myself)
- etaioinshrdlu 4y agoThis 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.
- eternityforest 4y agoI'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 4y agoI 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 4y agoI'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 4y agoYeah, 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).
- madengr 4y agoWouldn’t it take a photo plotter longer to interpolate around a curve? Seems like 0/45/90 routing would be faster to plot.
- q-big 4y agoRelevant: TopoR, an EDA program developed and maintained by the Russian company Eremex: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopoR 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/ https://www.eremex.com/products/topor/
- yair99dd 4y agomitxela 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 http://i.imgur.com/66S5KMv.gif
- nomel 4y ago> 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!?
- Alupis 4y agoI think one of the hidden benefits of 45 degree bends is implicit organization. I have zero experience with boards like what this TopoR router can create, but the sample images are chaos to my eyes and difficult to follow. That could just be what I'm used to seeing, however... but it looks like paint flung onto a canvas vs. highway lanes to me.
- FPGAhacker 4y agoAh yes. The Pollock Router.
- rasz 4y agoElectrons (or should I say holes) dont care. On the other hand less sharp angles means less danger of over-etching. https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/dfm-issues-pcb-manufacturing/ https://www.protoexpress.com/blog/dfm-issues-pcb-manufacturi...
- amelius 4y agoNice but there is one feature I want more than this: automatic placement & routing.
- charcircuit 4y agoI was able to autoroute several years ago.
- nomel 4y agoDoes 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 4y agoI 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.
- Alupis 4y agoFor low-speed designs (think arduino and other similar hobby projects), auto-routing might work good enough, but auto-placement will be a disaster in all but the most trivial of board designs.
- Alupis 4y agoI 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.
- jaytaylor 4y agoIf anyone else is 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 4y agoTo 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, via types (buried, blind, tented, etc), pad size, solder mask tolerances, 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.
- exmadscientist 4y agoYou shouldn't really target a particular fab, you should target a sort of "class" averaged from the capabilities of multiple fabricators. Services that shop your order around basically do this for you, if they bother to quote standard rules at all. This will save you from redesign work, though realistically it's saving you from vendor lock-in and price gouging. Sierra can manufacture pretty much anything... but who can afford them?
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoAs long as people are putting their wish lists out… I want a standard DRC format that I can get from a mfg and drop into my program.
- Gracana 4y agoThat is one of the goals of the new KiCAD DRC system. I really hope it pans out, because it's a great idea and ought to reduce friction for designers.
- jtfinlay 4y agoI 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 4y agoEtching masks are usually digitally printed; they shouldn't care about the shape of the traces.
- a9h74j 4y agoGreat 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 http://www.philmore-datak.com/mc/Page%20274.pdf
- exmadscientist 4y agoTape didn't really like to bend (at least not the stuff I used when I dabbled in old school layout 20+ years ago), for the same reason cars need differentials. Markers, on the other hand... markers were perfect for that.
- Gracana 4y agoI think that's right. I found some envelopes at work with design documents for similar looking boards, and that's how they were made. Drawn on paper, laid out on clear film with tape and adhesive transfer pads, and photographically reduced for etching. One of the envelopes even includes a roll of punched paper tape, which I assume is the drill NC program. I've since re-created the boards in KiCAD, but I hung onto the old documents because they're such neat historical artifacts.
- mNovak 4y agoI 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.
- voakbasda 4y agoGood news. KiCad 6.0 now comes with a Plug-in Manager.