Hi, I am working on a project where I am making a PCB with a matching laser cut acrylic backing piece.
I have found the SVG export feature in PCBNew very useful for this purpose, because I can just export my edge cuts layer and have it imported directly by the laser cutting service. Very streamlined and works exactly as needed.
However, I am also looking to add cuts beneath my through hole drills to make room for the component leads. Here it gets more complicated, since there seems to be no option to add only the drills to the SVG export (I can only add an entire copper layer). When I look at related topics on here people have suggested a bunch of weird multi-step stuff involving custom python scripts or monthly license file converters, but those are are obviously pretty non-ideal solutions.
Is there any way to export the drills as an SVG or similar direct from PCBNew?
It’s so the acrylic can mount flush to the back on the PCB. Otherwise you’ll get a slight bump from the component lead and the solder pad and the whole thing will be uneven.
Ok, but won’t you have to make the hole large enough to accomodate the solder bump? And you would be exposing the contact via the hole. If you want a flush backplate why not just use SMDs on the front, and have no components on the back?
But if you had to do it, I suppose you could parse the Excellon PTH drill file and generate a layer in SVG that you could merge with the edge cuts SVG. I have not looked to see if a programmer has written something like that.
I don’t think so.
But you could export your pcb as STEP and import it in FreeCAD (or a MCAD you are fine with).
From there you can select the pcb only and export it as flattened SVG.
EDIT:
A second option could be to generate your drill files, then import them in GerberViewer and Export those to a KiCAD pcb file assigning the drills to i.e. Drawings layer.
Finally open the generated PCB and plot the Drawing layer to SVG format.