I’m trying to do thermal modelling and using KiCAD Step Up in FreeCAD to achieve this. I have the traces on the top and the bottom of the board, but am looking to get data for the internal copper layers as well to get the most accurate simulation possible.
Are there ways to achieve this?
Perhaps you’ve seen my Thermal FEM on PCB (a few years old now)… or perhaps you’re skilled/knowledgable enough and can use StepUp to load the PCB. Pads and Traces… and know how to do the FEM
For multilayer PCB, StepUp doesn’t load the inner layers. However, from Kicad, you can Export DXF (not STEP) of the inner layers and then Import them into FreeCAD.
Having imported the inner layer Traces into FreeCAD, you can set their Height to replicate their depth in the PCB… quick video demo of that part (not of FEM)
For Reference… Four layer PCB in Kicad’s 3D-Viewer
I don’t know of kv8 is exporting also internal layers as STEP.
An other option is to use fcad_pcb which is the library used in StepUp.
Search fcad_pcb realthunder github
Thanks all for the suggestions! I used the fcad_pcb library to create the copper layers as one contiguous mass and now I have a model of my PCB in FreeCAD including all the inner copper and vias.
