Using a nightly, V5RC3, went to plot some gerbers and came across a check box labeled as the title, “Exclude pads from silkscreen”.
Even the tool-tip was not very clear in meaning to me.
Anyone know what this check-box does, and the “normal” setting checked/un-checked for typical gerbers to be sent for fab?
Some people like to use the silkscreen layer as build-up documentation.
To do this you can add a silkscreen layer to all your pads; for plotting the actual silkscreen you’d check “exclude pads” and for plotting the build-up documentation you uncheck it.
Maybe it is time to make some separation between “Plot for Printing Documentation” and “Gerber Creation for Sending to Fab”?
“Do not tent vias” is clearly a Gerber Fabrication specification.
“Exclude PCB edge layer from other layers” is also a Gerber Fabrication specification.
“Plot sheet reference on all layers” could mean either to someone like me who has never clicked the box and examined the outcome.
AFAIK at the moment, “Exclude pads from silkscreen” is a “Plot for Printing Documentation” feature.
Might I suggest:
Plot Options
Gerber Options
Gerber File Specifications
I’ll bet a quarter this question gets asked again after V5 release.
It’s a conundrum. We split off Export to SVG, but now we’re getting bug reports that they don’t have the exact same feature set. I’m not sure what the answer is…
I’m not an expert KiCad user, but I’m also far from being a “newbie”. This one setting really threw me off when trying to send out quality gerbers for Fabrication.
I think this issue needs to be clarified or I won’t be the only one asking this exact same question.
Thanks for taking notice.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
