Fillets on tracks

I’m interested in what designers think of fillets on traces to remove sharp 45 degree bends.

Specifically, I’m redoing an ESP32 design that I had a contractor do (somewhat badly) and it occurred to me that this may reduce signal reflections.

Or maybe the problem is more my perception than reality.

Yeah electrons can skid and fly off the sharp corners. :wink:

Aren’t there already fillet options in KiCad? I haven’t looked for a while.

@retiredfeline , yes, the fillet option is there. I was curious as to whether designers use them much. It looks like a lot of hard work though.

A few years ago Mitxela made a plugin for rounding corners and also made an amazing video about his plugin, with the title “Melt your circuit boards”.

But the whole thing is mostly aesthetic. Sharp corners are completely irrelevant until you get into the GHz range with your signals. Filleted corners are also harder to edit in KiCad

1 Like

@paulvdh , that video is really impressive!

I’m showing my age when I say that the first PCBs I laid out were done manually with tape on vellum, done at 2:1 scale.

Then, we went to PCAD which was pretty good back in the 1980s but so expensive.

For about 10 years all my PCBs were drawn directly at PCB (of course 1:1) with ballpoint pen refill with ballpoint removed using a shoe paint. I didn’t know such paint exists until I have read in the electronic journal that it is suitable for this task.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.