

Design for Assembly in KiCad - unwind
http://rheingoldheavy.com/design-assembly-kicad/

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csirac2
This is a great article. Just this year I've become partially involved in
hardware design again after some years now doing mostly just software - it's
amazing how cheap fab options are these days!

I recently got a few quotes for contract assembly of some small boards, ~100
SMT parts each and the prices ranged from $12 to $200 per board. Hand-
assembled, because the quantities weren't sufficient for pick & place.

I didn't see any mention of KiCad's DRC rules, how does this compare with
EAGLE? Specifying solder vs paste mask clearances is something I briefly
agonized over but it seems Eagle has sane defaults there that worked out okay
in the end.

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rheingoldheavy
Back when I decided to pick an economical design tool, I had a four layer
board to design and the price was right with KiCad, so I never got into using
EAGLE. The clearance issue is one that I do have to wrap my brain around each
time I do it, just like pin spacing on custom footprints. I put that down to
my own personal issues with keeping three digit numbers straight in my head
though, rather than any particular problem with KiCad in general. That's why I
consider doing the Gerber visual diff so vital, because it's very easy to tell
when you've screwed up the solder vs. paste clearance.

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footoverhand
Great article. It has been a few years since I last laid out a board in KiCad,
the biggest thing I remember is that importing parts and footprints took a lot
of work and it wasn't a very straight forward process.

Does anyone have a good workflow for managing and exporting parts so that
people can go and download your cad files and libraries to reproduce your
board?

~~~
jesse_m
Have you checked out the KiCad library on github[1]? That library is installed
with the install script that is included with KiCad I believe when you
downloaded the bzr repo. The library maintainers seem to work pretty closely
with the KiCad developers. I have started using KiCad for personal projects
and have been following the KiCad development for about 6 months now and from
what I have gathered there has been a lot of changes in the last year. I would
definitely suggest giving it another try in the near future. It also seems
that the way footprints and 3d models are handled has changed in the last
year.

As for specific help for KiCad, they have a very helpful irc channel on
freenode, there is a KiCad yahoo users group, and I just found this website
with videos: KiCad.info

There hasn't been a stable release in a while but the developers seem to be
serious about making a new stable release in the near future.

[1] [https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-library](https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-
library)

~~~
footoverhand
This is the first time I have seen the KiCad library on github, that would
presumably make sharing generated footprints and parts easier. For the board I
produced of in 2011, I shared my library on sourceforge as a zip with no clear
installation directions. I mostly learned KiCad from David Jones nice
tutorial[1].

I'll check out KiCad in a few days to see how easy it is to share a design
with someone else, to see with the latest version if library parts can be
easily shared. Thanks for the links and helpful suggestions of consulting the
IRC channel for support, I wouldn't have considered the IRC channel.

[1]
[http://www.alternatezone.com/electronics/files/PCBDesignTuto...](http://www.alternatezone.com/electronics/files/PCBDesignTutorialRevA.pdf)

~~~
rheingoldheavy
That's a brilliant document! Very thorough!

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poseid
great introduction, and impressive depth. thanks for sharing! I wonder what
you think of e.g. online tools for PCB design like upvertert.com

~~~
rheingoldheavy
I like the idea of an online-for-the-masses EDA tool, but I've actually done
layout on a laptop in my father's house with no internet connection. There's
no way I could cobble together a schematic without being able to look at
datasheets, but the PCB layout and routing doesn't necessarily need to be
always-connected.

I tried using Upverter either earlier this year or late last year, can't
remember when, and I just remember that I struggled with the interface. That's
not a smack on Upverter though, just an incompatibility between the tool and
the idiot trying to use it :)

~~~
poseid
Thanks! Good point, the web supports interaction with datasheets and
conceptual work, less with the implementation of a PCB. On a sidenote, I was
working on a small (open-source) project the last days to support rendering
pin layouts of boards, and maybe address problems with datasheet interaction.
A first sneak preview is here:
[http://pinboardjs.divshot.io/](http://pinboardjs.divshot.io/) \- I need to
document it, but it would be great to hear what you think, if it speaks to
you, or not at all.

