I’m trying to wrap my head around Kicad, but was wondering if someone could help me out with something.
I’m designing a front panel rather than a pcb, to be made as if it was a pcb on fr4. In Kicad, I’m importing a dxf onto the edge cuts layer. When I preview this in 3d, all looks good. Problem I cant figure out, is when I add a copper pour to F.Cu, it covers the holes that the edge cuts dxf created. Sorry if this is dead simple, but how to I pour copper onto the top and back without it interfering with the edge cuts?
Yeah sure. Sure I’m doing something stupid, just don’t know where the stupid is yet…
Actually, just tried to upload, won’t let me as I’m new to the forum. It’s just a dxf with the board outline and a window and a few holes cut onto the edge layer, then adding a copper pour to the F.Cu layer with the Add fill zones tool.
You have not net for the zone. It’s handled a bit differently from zones which have a net attached. I guess you have to add a dummy symbol & footprint with one pin/smd pad and add it to the board.
Ah ok. I’m still very new to this so trying to figure it out. Just read a bit on nets, am I right in thinking they’re formed with electrical connections? Does that mean the only way to do it is by having as you say some dummy elements on there? Is there not a way to just pour copper without any components?
As a random aside, I like using single sided aluminium PCBs for endplates on extrusions. Really easy way to make pretty silkscreened endplates if you only like certain colours. For dummy symbols and footprints, a company logo is a nice one to create as it will usually be used on the plate graphics anyways…
Yeah, I’ve seen the aluminium boards, seems like such a cheap way to get nice panels. Trying to figure this out so I can experiment with fr4 first. Really confused by how to do it though. Think I’ve got a lot of reading to do tomorrow! Will see if I can find some info on setting up a logo or text as a symbol. Thanks very much for the help.
