X = Make a PCB (with KiCad?).
Y = Fiddling with DXF imports.
Sorry. It ârevertedâ. I may have neglected to hit the âcheck markâ which is the save. Not an intuitive interface.
the pcb file:
board 1 scaled positioned edge.kicad_pcb (58.5 KB)
It appears to have worked now, many thanks!
the DXF R12 file:
board 1 PDF to DXFR12 scaled inverted2.dxf (14.8 KB)
I didnât quite understand how to do that, until he had explained it that way! I guess my mistake was doing all my browsing and reading before I created an account here, and / or without being signed in.
ETA: I wasnât able to find anything on forum policies, or any explanation of how that is supposed to work.
I believe this still applies Forum trust levels - ability to post pictures Not sure why it is not in the FAQ sectionâŚ
It might be a very good idea to check your Gerbers before you send the files out for fabâŚ
I donât think you are actually going to get what you think you want to getâŚ
I think he spoke about being able to attach files here, not about the KiCad workflow.
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As I suspected â this takes a couple of minutes with 5.99:
Workflow:
- Select all lines of one area.
- Context menu -> Convert -> to Polygon.
- Donât click second time!
- Press Delete or Context menu -> Delete to remove the original lines.
- Select the new polygon, open Properties.
- Change line thickness to 0.
The most time consuming thing is to select all lines of a complex shape. Use Shift + click or Shift + drag to add to selection.
This works because each shape is a continuous outline made of straight segments.
Do you see one of the problems?
Please tell. ---------
- Some of the copper is only âoutlinedâ.
- KiCad doesnât know where the soldermask should be removed.
Does your script also take into account the soldermask?
It was only an example, I have no interest to do it completely.
Wow, most excellent! It looks like the entire problem is that the version I have lacks that âconvert to polygonâ option. Being as this aspect of the functionality isnât documented, I simply chose the current version with the smallest file size, due to my internet connection having an extremely small data cap. Now it is a choice between waiting several weeks and get version 5.99 just before my data cap resets, or doing it now and hoping that my connection doesnât get throttled before then (or having to pay extra to get the data cap extended). Iâll probably chance it and cross my fingers. 
It will also be interesting to see if version 5.99 requires scaling, or if the DXF R12 imports correctly without the scaling being necessary. It will probably still be necessary to get rid of the extra rectangles, since I believe that they are added by Inkscape during the conversion to DXF R12
I donât think he did âconvert to polygonâ for every one of the copper areas in his example, he was just demonstrating that it worked.
I wonât be using a solder mask layer at all. But I imagne that for those who will use a solder mask layer, it could be done in exactly the same way.
Is this the same one you had described earlier? Can it be installed as a simple plugin, or is it necessary to run it in python? If Iâm correct, you produced this result with the âpython necessary scriptâ that you wrote. Instead of selecting each line segment individually or using a script, wouldnât it be just as easy and quick to âdrag a rectangleâ around everything to âselect allâ?
Yes, that should go without saying! One step at a time, though.
Windoze users can select the lite version of the nightly; aproximately 150MB vs 1GB.
Note: There is a very minimal chance that the file format may change and your file may be broken when using official V6 releases. I personally would not let this stop me if I were you. Your designs seem small and simple enough to re-do in the event you ever need to modify the files in the future; and your current gerbers will still work for manufacture.
Iâd rather just get the whole thing in one shot, rather than having to deal with updates. That would also probably avoid the potential problem you mentioned, and I most likely wouldnât bother with a later version of the program unless it incorporated expanded functions for manual editing and control (such as a scaling function with separate X and Y factors, the ability to mirror the X or Y axis, being able to move selected points by entering coordinates, etc).