Back about 2 to 3 years ago I made round PCBs. I have forgotten how I made them. Here is a picture of the PCB I made in the pass. How did I do this? I cannot believe I forgot.
Thanks in advance,
Joe
Your image link did not work, I fixed it by removing a space in between the [image] and the (link:).
KiCad does not support real circles and arcs as zone boundaries, but your thermal reliefs suggest that you do nave real zones. That is a bit of a puzzle.
I tried it directly in Kicad and I couldn’t do it, I think the best thing is to use Inkscape and from there import the shape you need.
Meh, you’re giving up too quick.
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I’ve got something working.
The simplest way would be to directly draw graphical objects on copper, and add some pads. But that’s not a nice project. KiCad V8 does have the ability to assign net names to graphical objects on a copper layer. But that is new in KiCad V8. You could not have used it in your old project.
For the above screenhot (and your project).
- Create a schematic with all nets and footprints. Maybe 4 testpoints for the 5V net, and 4 test points for the GND net.
- [F8] them to the PCB so you have the footprints and nets.
- Select Edge.Cuts and draw the circle for the outline.
- Draw a GND zone around the PCB. It will be clipped by the circle on Edge.Cuts.
- Make sure a footprint with the GND net is in the proper place, so KiCad knows how to fill the GND zone.
- Draw a circle on the margin layer. You can experiment with line width to get the clearance you want.
- Draw a new zone. Just a rough polygon and about the same size as the circle on the margin layer.
- This new zone must have a higher priority.
- Put the +5V footprints inside.
- Draw another smaller circle on the margin layer.
- Cleanup and make it pretty.
I put a random footprint in the project, just to have something solid to connect the nets to.
I’ll attach the file so you can look what’s inside it.
00aa_module.pretty.kicad_pcb.zip (21.8 KB)
A third option is to:
- Create a circle on a copper layer.
- Select. Right click and then: Create from Selection / Create Polygon from selection and use the Create Boundary Hull function.
- Use this function again, and now turn it into a copper zone.
This does not give you an exact circle, but a pretty good approximation with line segments of a round zone. You can set the accuracy in: PCB Editor / File / Board Setup / Design Rules / Constraints / Arc/Circle approximated by segments: Maximum allowed deviation: …
You don’t need Inkscape for that. You get that result by just drawing graphical circles on a copper layer in KiCad. Now add the thermal reliefs, and the pads that extend beyond the inner circle of the zone. That is why I added the third option to draw it as graphical shapes last.
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Thank to all, I believe I know what to do now.