Hello,
I would like to design a spiral in Kicad but I can’t find any tool to do that.
Until now I was creating the spiral in Autocad, then converted it to gerber and then export from GerberView as .pcb.
Is there any way to design it entirely in Kicad?
I’m attaching an image of an older spiral transferred to Kicad.
Could you suggest me where could I learn some pcb techniques to work with RF?
I mean if would be something like a workshop video or similar…
Thank you
Maurice
@Joan_Sparky
I’m not familiar with python. Although, I read the post but it’s not what I’m looking for in the moment but I’ll keep that in mind (when I’m in the mood for python).
I prefer to create arcs in footprint editor and then convert them to copper in text editor.
@kinichiro
That is a good idea but I want to avoid using Autocad for this design. Do you know any other program that creates spiral/helix with controllable radius?
@Maui
Thank you for the links. I’ll check them out.
I know nothing about pcb RF designs but I found some guidelines.
I know that at https://hackaday.io/project/8117/logs
they organized a workshop on RF techniques: Simple RF Circuit Design (Sunday Afternoon) Michael Ossmann will show specific examples from his own designs including Ubertooth One, HackRF One, and YARD Stick One. Participants with prior experience designing non-RF circuits should be able to walk out of this workshop with the ability to design boards to use RF transceiver ICs.
That would be great if the workshop would be available as video, because it is also a talking about kicad RF techniques …
[quote=“Deppy, post:9, topic:1745”]
I’m not familiar with python. Although, I read the post but it’s not what I’m looking for in the moment but I’ll keep that in mind (when I’m in the mood for python). I prefer to create arcs in footprint editor and then convert them to copper in text editor.[/quote]
Well, I prefer to create copper spirals as tracks in python and copy&paste them into a kicad_pcb that has got the basic setup done and then enjoy myself
You’re welcome.
The code might need some polishing for CW/CCW of those spirals and maybe something that would add 1/2 segments per turn as it get’s quite corner-y in the outer turns compared to the inner ones.
@Joan_Sparky
I’m trying to import your file but it seems that I’m doing something wrong.
I am using BZR 6245 on VM winXP.
Steps I followed :
-Save helix.py (your file) in the directory Program files/Kicad/bin/scripting/plugging.
-Then restart PCBnew and re-open it.
-opened scripting console and typed “import helix”.
-open footprint editor and select “new footprint using footprint wizard” and then select “wizard script to load and run” and nothing is to be shown.
Sadly I can’t find a way to do this step. Could you please help me?
I have installed python 2.7 in VM and tried to use helix.py in shell and cmd.
Meaning, in cmd I changed the directory in order to read your file. Also, ran python.exe through cmd but I can’t do the “helix.py > helix.txt”… I did pretty much the same in the shell.