Hello!
I am new here, and started getting familiar with KiCad. Already I made some basic schematics, but now I would like to design something, with two pcbs. One of the panels connected to the other as a sandwich. Bottom panel would contain a microcontroller, and some other stuff, and the top panel would have an LCD display, some connectors, and buttons. After I create the netlist, and assign components to the schematic, is there a way to design somehow this kind of panel orientation?
I’m not sure if there’s a way to do exactly what you’re asking, but you could separate your schematic into two projects/pages and end up with two separate board files. Just be sure to make note of connector placement and part clearances.
So, if I made two schematic file in one project and make two pcb layout too, KiCad will be able to use the netnames of the two separate schematic to bind each other for a test for example? Or I have to design two completely separated schematics and pcbs, and measure distances to place the connectors to the right places?
There were some very good ideas in this thread where I asked a similar question.
The project I was asking after there is now at the PCB manufacturer so can’t give you the full story on how ite went but can speak to which of those options I did. Mine had two PCBs, one as the main board and the other attached at a right angle which included the controls that would poke through the front of the enclosure. It’s very similar to your idea, but mine are at right angles rather than being a sandwich.
FIrstly, since my two boards each were quite large, I didn’t create the two boards panelised but kept them both to smaller than 100x100mm to keep the manufacturing cost down. In that thread you’ll see some great advice about having one gerber but having the ability to cut it down a row of mousebites in the board to make the two. Yours might suit that but mine did not.
If you want to have two PCBs made and not cut, this is what I did:
I created one schematic and selected footprints for the entire project, then when I opened pcbnew for the first time and imported the netlist, I saved and exited, then copied the .kicad_pcb file so I had two. Then I opened each in pcbnew, and deleted the footprints I didn’t need so there was nothing common between each PCB design. One of these PCBs will be named for the project so will open when you launch pcbnew with the project open. The other will show in the file list as its in the same project directory, and doubleclicking on it will launch pcbnew to edit it.
All in all I was happy with how this process works - the only downside is when I changed the schematic and re-exported the netlist, all the unwanted components reappear in each board but they’re easy enough to delete.