I have to create a rather complex RF-Shield.
As I haven’t found anything on that topic yet, I thought it would be interesting to collect some experience here, on how to solve the problem.
As you know, those shields can get quite complex and having them already designed just ready to extrude would be a great help. I got the gerber files for the layout of the shield and general path of the RF-Signals to design it. I already know how to impor them into pcbnew and how to export those paths then into other programs.
What I have tried so far with medium success is:
Imported the gerber file into pcbnew, converted it to a vector file (SVG) then tried to extrude it with FreeCAD. Sadly only the path gets exported not the width of the shield.
Next I tired the same thing with blender - Same result.
So then I tried this path → Save the SVG as PNG, convert it back to a SVG, import it into blender then add an extrude and save it as an STL. As you may can guess, somewhere in the line, my size data got lost.
My collegue then suggested flatcam to get the outline of the shield. I will now try this method out and see what I can get.
You first import the wanted gerber files, generate geometries and export it as DXF. I then imported those DXF files into Solidworks (Not recommended with FreeCAD, it has a bit of a problem loading in the DXF. The convertion from shapes to sketch is difficult as you need to select a lot of objects (11500 in my case)) and now I can extrude my chambers, and as an added bonus, I can also export all the HF paths as well to know where to make the passthroughs.
I am now posting this but I’ll update it throughout the day as I am currently working on it.
If you have any input on how to create a shield, it’d be highly appreciated.
So in conclusion, How I fugured out to do it quite efficently:
I exported the files from our ECAD (in this case Altium) imported the needed files to generate the shield into KiCad. Edited the files as needed → Removed unneeded structures, cleaned up the outlines…
Then I ploted the files as Gerber and Imported them into FlatCAM to edit the structures and create geometry structures. Removed dead material. I created 4 separate files:
Outline
Path
Chambers
Holes (Mounting holes)
With the help of FlatCAM I also was able to create wider/smaller outlines from my exported gerber files.
I then imported them using kicadStepUp. I combined Path, Chambers and Holes into one structure and generated an extruded variant from the Outline. I subtracted Path, Chambers and Holes from the Outline and voila. A full RF-Shield.
Warning: If your PC lacks a graphics card or is really poor on calculation power this might take a long time. I had to experience it as my work PC only has onboard graphics. ^^
