Countersinking holes will certainly not be a standard option and would need to be discussed with your board manufacturer ($£Y ++). I think you are likely to have to post process your boards with a conical grinding bit (careful with the dust) if you want to achieve this. You mentioned earlier that the holes are connected to copper - you might be better to consider Mounting holes with Via Pads. These can be connected to your copper planes - for EMI purposes, and, moreover, they offer greater structural integrity. You should then probably use a cheese headed screw to distribute the strain most effectively.
I have not done any more on this project since the last reply but had stopped because I thought I had the layout like I wanted it and the 3D view verified the cutout.
Now I would like to know how or if I can move that long rectangular cutout for the LCD and its 4 mounting holes on this top panel? I think if I move the cutout and mounting holes 6mm closer to the center that I can avoid making taller side panels. Is there a way to move that cutout to a different place on that panel or do I have to just start over?
I don’t need opening for LCD at my PCB but I have 4 holes for it. I have designed footprint for that LCD so I can move it like any other footprint and all 4 holes moves at once.
Unfortunately in KiCad (as I know - not checked since 4.0.7) you can’t have Edge.Cuts lines as a part of footprint.
If you had defined a footprint for that LCD you would be sure that all holes are always at relatively correct positions. You also could have a lines at some selected by you layer showing where the opening at Edge.Cuts has to be to simply notice any mistake in moving it separately form LCD footprint.
Correction: you can not create them from within kicad. In v4 the footprint editor did indeed not support them at all (did not even have the edge cuts layer and therefore needed to move any graphics on this layer to some other layer)
Since v5 one can at least view footprints that have something on the edge cuts layer within the footprint editor. This is a slight improvement but not yet what i would love to see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1251393
I did not make a library footprint for the LCD. This is all a freehand board. It is simply a top panel that happens to be made from FR4 pc board material. In hindsight I wish I had made an LCD footprint. I did try to find one but was having a lot of trouble finding one that matched or even came close. As I recall, the cutout is 25mm x 75mm and then a hole (4-40 or M2.5) in each corner for mounting.
It was clear from what you have written. I just suggested that if you instead of inserting separately 4 holes have them as footprint than next use (or move) would be easier and with less possibility of generating errors.
It was only suggestion to consider for the next time.
It happened that we use 0-layer PCB for some mechanical purposes. We order it at PCB manufacturer.
The inputs they expect are the same as for typical PCB - so gerber and Excellon.
So, you make front panels from FR4? As a mechanical engineer I cringe at the thought. I might be spoiled though from having the ability to CNC mill aluminum enclosures…
Although I haven’t tried it, some people are actually using aluminium pcb material for this and the results look quite good. Whatever material you use, it is a viable way to produce a small, neat panel for a one-off or short run prototype designs.
EDIT Purely for interest i got a quote for 100mms x 50mms in Aluminium and for the minimum order of 5 panels they worked out at about £4 each ($5) so fairly cost effective for a small run.
Using FR4 for front panels makes sense for the corner case of needing a non-conductive front panel. Plus, as long as the board vendor has soldermask and silkscreen colors that one can use for their end application, ordering can be simpler by not having to juggle a metal shop and a paint shop separately… (Yes, I know some businesses offer both, but not all.)
No.
I know that a thread is about front panel, but you asked about using KiCad to any other mechanical purposes. So I showed the situation in which I see it can be useful.
We use that PCB to protect elements on our PCB from being touched by cable when user is wall mounting our device.
At first I just made a mechanical picture and we ordered it somewhere from mechanic firm made from policarbon. But when we came to asking them for RoHS declaration for material used they just didn’t understood what we need. So we changed to use PCB.
Ah, I see! Actually I had a similar situation (FR4 spacer between two PCBs) and my natural reflex was to mill it on the CNC. Having it ordered by a PCB manufacturer along with the two PCB would make a lot of sense. I haven’t heard of the 0-layer option
At first we had ordered 1-layer but using empty top gerber. We found it being (in our small quantities) competitive to other (mechanical) sources. Also as PCB designing is our everyday task designing one more is simpler then learning to use the other mechanical CAD program. Also I believe the accuracy of PCB manufacturer process is better then if (small quantity) someone manually drills holes.
Few years later we found that ‘our’ PCB manufacturer officially included into his “Offered technologies”:
Number of copper layers: min/max : 0(laminate without copper)/8.
