F_Fab, F_SilkS and F_CrtYd layers all contain silkscreen drawing kinda lines/texts (value, reference, component outline, keep-out-area etc.). Is it possible to summarize these layers to a “single_silkscreen” gerber? If not in KiCAD, is there any gerber tool to do this?
The Fab and Courtyard layers are not silkscreen layers. They are not intended to be visible on the final board.
The fab layer is for notes and instructions for fabricators. You probably wouldn’t want “place this component last” to be printed on your board.
The courtyard layer is more for clearance. According to the Kicad Library Conventions rules 6.6 and 6.7 (https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-library/blob/master/KiCad_Library_Convention.txt ) provide a visual clearance for components. This is supposed to be used for placement and I believe in particular for pick and place machines so you don’t have components running in to each other.
If you really insist on putting the fab and courtyard layers in your silkscreen I’m sure there is a way. You may need to open the pcb file and manually change (search and replace) F.Fab and F.CrtYd to F.SilkS and same for the back.
The fab layer holds values. I don’t want to see “place this at last” text on my board, but I do want to see “4n7/63V”, as we master by manual (iron) soldering or manual solder paste + component placing + reflow oven. Seeing reference, value and border line as well is very useful.
Absolutely disagree. Silkscreen is not neccessary at final, mass-manufacturing pcb’s, but
I want all 3 layers to be visible, at least at developer boards.
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Courtyard is 0.05mm thick so it may be impossible to print it on board. To move F.Fab to F.SilkS you can use some “find and replace” tool to replace (layer F.Fab) with (layer F.SilkS) in library files or pcb files.
I think the point of the original question is being missed. As I understand it, the desire is to be able to have additional layers added to the “silkscreen” Gerber file.This is easy to do in Eagle, but I can’t see how to do it in Kicad.
Arguments explaining how I’m not supposed to want to do that, although well-meaning, are not particularly helpful.
In Eagle, when I Gerber out a “layer”, I can specify all actual layers to include or exclude. This is an important capability that I (and obviously others - like the original poster) rely on. If it is not part of Kicad, it should be.
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Well, if I were determined to have this I’d look at the Gerber output of KiCAD… have it output not just the Silkscreen, but also the F.fab + F.CrtYd layers as gerbers and would then try to merge the gerber files by some 3rd party tool… and if that 3rd party tool is me and a text editor so be it.
I don’t think it’s impossible, just not very convenient at the moment.
But you can definitely put out those other layers in a gerber conform format… just a question of how you get them into the silkscreen gerber file or how you’re able to tell your boardhouse that you want those layers to appear on the silkscreen.
This is exactly what I did. They have gerber tool for integrating multiple gerber files to silkscreen.
On the other hand it is only my obsession to draw values (e.g.“100K”) to silkscreen. When manual placing+soldering I give a paperprint to technician. He/she reads “R25” from board, checks the adherent value from paper pcb print or BOM. Value doesn’t need to be drawn on board. If value is not printed on board it can be bigger and overlap pads. At a dense pcb there is simply no room for values.
So this claim of ours may be (n+1)th on wishlist.
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