I had finished designing a PCB and went place an order for it. During that process, I found out that I should probably use a step stencil because my footprints use a variety of pitch sizes. From what I’ve been able to read, it seems that the step information is somehow included in a Gerber file, but I don’t know how to go about adding the steps in Pcbnew. Is Pcbnew capable of doing this? If so, could someone explain how to do it or direct me to a resource that explains it?
I don’t think kicad has support for this.
I am also not sure they are really required for anything but medium to high volume yield optimized production so if your usecase does not fall under this then you are most likely ok with using the cheaper normal stencils and just vary the aperture size as required. -> By the way this does not mean kicad should not support it, is just a hint that you might be able to get away with something cheaper and still get acceptable yield (I can not make the decision as i do not know your usecase nor do i know the cost difference at your manufacturer).
Thanks for the response. I’m just a hobbyist, and I’m only producing a few, so I’ll just try it with a normal stencil and see how it works out.
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