My first sentence in first answer to your question (8 days and 73 posts ago) was:
Are you still sure that you have chosen the easiest way to achieve the goal of making
I suppose (we didn’t sow your schematics yet) that experienced KiCad user (I’m not - specially I have no experience in using KiCad library with footprint selection stage in the process) may be would be able to do it in one day (having the cheat sheet with placement and routing ready).
I also suppose that after 8 days you could be now close to finishing them.
At the same time experience got with KiCad use normal way would be much more useful then experience got using KiCad your way, I think.
So while waiting for any responses that may be useful in figuring out what’s wrong, I decided to try the last resort solution with board number 2 since the design is the most simple of the three boards that I need, it is not much more than some rectangles with plated through holes in some of them. So I totally redrew the board in KiCAD, with each rectangle and the unetched groundplane on the back of the board being zones, and dropped in the plated through holes. I am now able to turn the filled view on and off, and see where the copper is supposed to be. But in the 3D view, I get this:
Is this how it is supposed to look in the 3D view? I don’t see any rectangles of copper!
Hey, what do you know! I just tried that, and I don’t think that it worked properly. Would you like to know how many hours I just spent taking your advice?
I’m very rapidly coming to the conclusion that ordering boards from a board house is NOT the easiest way. That is exactly correct, in the amount of time I have spent trying to make gerber files, I could have built an electroplating rig and have finished the boards by now (if I had all the propert materials on hand, including the board substrates) by methods that have been proven to actually work.
As I use 3D viewer to test PCB I assumed that in most cases it shows it correctly.
The only bug in 3D view I have noticed, you can see here. The 3D viewer does not notice that the edge is broken by the holes and paints the edge where there is none.
I have never placed copper as you do it so I had never chance to notice that 3D viewer probably don’t shows it at all.
If you tried and you don’t think it worked properly then why you asked 0 questions about how to use KiCad properly?
Seeing no such questions I have a right to assume that you just didn’t tried, I think.
And who are you to say what is proper, and what is not? I don’t remember you attempting to contribute anything useful here.
You apparently haven’t noticed that I’ve been asking an entire threads’ worth of questions, you’ve been too busy being more persistently discouraging than anyone else here. Do you troll and attempt to derail constructive discussion in every thread, as you have done here?
Again, many thanks to those who have attempted to offer useful advice on getting the import function to actually work. Any further attempts would be much appreciated.
Hmm, maybe I imagined it, not sure if I have a copy of v4 somewhere.
Anyway, I’ve been googling It seems that creating filled polys is actually a common DXF question. To create solid areas, HATCH attribute can be used.
So I created a test file in LibreCad, but the hatched poly is not imported by KiCad, only the polyline.
It appears that designing layouts in DXF and importing directly to KiCad is not a viable method.
I did everything in my power to put your thinking on the right track. But if it doesn’t suit you then I’m out.
I wish you a lot of fun solving the problems you create for yourself.
I agree with chschlue, Piotr and the others here. As far as I understand you are still trying to use KiCad as a general mechanical CAD program with some features added such as holes in a PCB. As long as you keep doing that, your progress will be a slow and unpleasant experience for you.
This thread is also dragging on much to long, and getting a bit confusing. I just now noticed it was started by ronsimpson, and 2 weeks later hijacked by GoldenAge. (And this explains why GoldenAge was not able to upload a screenshot)
This thread also seems to be derailing, there are clearly some frustrations growing by different people (including me!).
KiCad works pretty well if you use it as it is intended to use, and that is:
Draw a schematic.
Assign footprints.
Port it to Pcbnew.
Make a PCB.
Note that there is no mention of DXF files in this workflow. DXF import is mostly meant to be some simple graphics and things like for example the PCB outline, but not for copper features.
If you try to import DXF and use that as copper, you are (almost certainly) abusing KiCad. And if you’re a beginner with KiCad, then you can scrap the “almost” from the previous sentence.
The best advice I can give is to (for the near future) forget about DXF import, and first learn how to use the normal workflow in KiCad.
Interesting! This appears to confirm what I had postulated the problem was, that the shapes were losing their fill somewhere between being saved as a DXF R12 in Inkscape, and importation into KiCAD.
I don’t know enough about this so say whether it would be viable or not, but perhaps going back to this:
and thinking along these same lines might offer a possible solution. Since zones can apparently be either filled or unfilled, might it be possible to edit the _pcb file to consider the DXF R12 import shapes as zones, and therefore allow them to be filled? A vector is a vector, there is another piece of additional information that should be contained somewhere in the file to indicate whether or not the shapes are filled. The question is, what and where is it?
From the quoted article:
"It is estimated over 10% of all PCB/RF electronic layouts are still designed using AutoCAD or other similar CAD tools (like SolidWorks, ProE, etc). Why?
The power of AutoCAD is that it supports a wide array of entities types which can be used to construct various electronic designs from the simplest PCB to the most extremely complex RF/Microwave circuit, MEMs design, chemical milling artwork, or other high-end electronic layout. Designers generally choose to layout their designs in AutoCAD when existing EDA/CAD tools do not possess the capabilities to meet unique geometrical requirements."
I suppose that over 10% of those doing board design don’t think correctly.
Thank you.
If over 10% of the people out there are taking a similar approach to their workflow, then it obviously has merit, regardless of your opinion.
So asking about the same topic in an existing thread rather than starting a new one is now hijacking? I always thought that was proper forum conduct. Nice attempt at a personal attack.
You apparently missed me doing it after someone had explained how, you’re obviously too busy being persistently discouraging.
It would be shorter without those who are only here to attempt discouragement rather than contribute anything constructive.
The only real reason to use a DXF is for a board outline or to describe some sort of RF feature.
Some people try to reverse engineer boards - usually to get some sort of faithful reproduction and this is always going to be a somewhat painful process whatever EDA you use - Mentor Graphics/Altium/Horizon whatever - none of these will make reverse engineering a board easy.
The general frustration is that you have already got the design that you need so you really don’t need to go to the lengths that you seem determined to. Just follow a simple project tutorial through from beginning to end and you will see for the type of design I think you are talking about - a few through hole components - that just laying out a schematic and following through with component selection, placement and routing is pretty straightforward. My feeling is that you feel that you have invested so long in the design that you think that redoing it in KiCad will take longer than your import DXF route whilst the reverse is almost certainly true. Unless you have some very specific RF feature on your board, I would encourage you to abandon this route. Even then, you would be well advised to selectively use the DXF to guide the RF feature, not the whole board. Importing DXFs is always going to be pretty niche.
Please just try using the software with a path for which it is optimised. Your complaint that it ‘doesn’t work when I use it this way’ like complaining that a screwdriver is useless for driving 6" nails.
I will not write any advice (as promised) but have to write if you uses something that you didn’t understood as a proof of something and placing it as a response to what I have written.
Find the info what is the % of RF PCBs among all PCBs and then take 10% of it.
Sorry, I have no more advise to offer, I did a couple of experiments yesterday, but importing filled shapes from a DXF and getting just the outline seems to be a very common problem.
From your screenshot, I am not sure what did you do, nor have you said which version of kicad are you using (Help->About->Copy version information), maybe you could share an screeshot of your layout, it will make it easier to figure out how is it supposed to look like.
Because the article is about “corner case” of PCB design, where having full manual control is more important than the efforts spent.
EDA software uses certain paradigm which is targeting for quick and effective way of meeting typical electronics design needs.
Think of printed text: you can create a nicely looking document in Postscript, but you can use Word to quickly assemble an OK-looking manual with useful fetures like automatic table of contents, auto correction etc.
And one more “word” analogy: you can use direct formatting, and you can do it properly with paragraph formatting. The first approach will bite you very quickly when it comes to redesign/rework your document. The same way as doing PCB without schematic.
I am still interested to get a sample of a DXF file you are trying to import. If you can’t post it here, there are plenty of file sharing sites, or just send to me via PM.
It seems that creating filled polys is actually a common DXF question. To create solid areas, HATCH attribute can be used.
