[HN Gopher] Melting KiCad
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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
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(page generated 2022-04-22 23:00 UTC)