KiCad StepUp New exporter for 3D MCAD (feedbacks are welcome)

[maui]

Also overlapping is not allowed for mcad but it seems to me it is fine for 3d rendering…
Anyway, having the pcbedge in kicad format would solve the riddle

[John_Pateman]

My fault - you were right Maurice - the board edge was not joined although even at max zoom I had difficulty seeing where the problem was. I think the sensitivity for detecting closure must be different between the 3d render and the StepUp macro? I originally got a rectangular board in 3D view until I adjusted the outline. When I tried to import the file in StepUp I got the segment but the board rendered properly in 3D view. Sorry!
John

[maui]

@John_Pateman

I think the sensitivity for detecting closure must be different between the 3d render and the StepUp macro?

MCAD needs precision… if you want a square you need a real closed path

I discovered on my road to MCAD that there is a nice function in pcbnew:
“Edit Item” segment properties…
there you can discover exactly the start and end of a segment and fix it properly

[davidsrsb]

I always end up doing this to set an exact board outline. It would be nice if there was a more direct way of entering a board outline as numerical coordinates of a polyline. As it is importing a dxf is the most direct method

[John_Pateman]

The problem with relying on the edit box is that the board i was having problems with is composed of arcs. Whilst using straight lines it would be easy to check the start and end points. The arc edit box gives a centre position and starting point accurate to 2decimals.

however the line segment is accurate to 5 or 6 decimals…

I think davidsrsb makes a good point - the ability to enter dimensions/starting points directly would be quite helpful in this sort of situation or indeed whenever designing to a specific size. I will try the dxf route another time.

[maui]

@John_Pateman

I think davidsrsb makes a good point - the ability to enter dimensions/starting points directly would be quite helpful in this sort of situation or indeed whenever designing to a specific size.

I agree very much, but you could get a request from developers to code it by yourself

I wrote a program to automatically update PCB refdes and back annotate to the schematic

Hi Maurice, I agree, it’s not a difficult task, if you mean adding a menu with shortcuts to python scripts. I would enjoy such feature. Write a half-page long proposal for that, post it on kicad-dev and then code it. Tom

Kicad is an amazing community with many different point of views that I often don’t understand, considering that is an open source project aimed to be widely spreaded

The hardware fraternity at CERN believes that KiCad can do to PCB
design what the GCC compiler did to software, letting design and
development knowledge flow more freely in the open hardware community.

…
Anyway, apart some jokes, dxf import is a very good option to avoid those issues …

[martin123]

Hello,

first thanks for a great plugin.
All of a sudden I can no longer open the newest plugin.
I have attached the error message from Freecad.

1.3.2.6 still opens without any problems

[maui]

Hi @martin123
thank you for using my StepUp plugin…
Which version of tools are you using? The latest should be 3.1.1.6

## Constant definitions
___ver___ = "3.1.1.6"  # added single instance and utf8 support 

Referring to your error message you are using a very old macro…
The latest is named kicad-StepUp-tools.FCMacro and can be used as batch script or as a GUI
You can also add the kicadStepUpMod folder to your
%AppData%\FreeCAD\Macro and open directly .kicad_pcb files in FreeCAD

Where did you get the StepUp tools?
kicad StepUp tools latest
Please keep me informed

[martin123]

Hi maui

Have the latest verion from Sourceforge.
This is what i get, when I use kicad-StepUp-tools.FCMacro;

The part about kicadStepUpMod folder, do you mean I can directly open kicad_pcb files with “File -> Open”?

[maui]

@martin123

The part about kicadStepUpMod folder, do you mean I can directly open kicad_pcb files with “File -> Open”?

yes, you can directly open a kicad_pcb file with File Open Menu in FC

Referring to the error, please try to:

1. delete or better rename your config ksu-config.ini file (it is located in %HomePath% , in your case it should be in c:\Users\i7 )
2. edit the file and configure your path to 3D prefix
3. close and reopen FC and try the macro again

Moreover, I would suggest you to move from FC 0.15 to FC 0.16 which is the latest stable release, with a lot of improvements (still I have no issues with FC 0.15)

EDIT: enable Report View Panel in FC to see better the errors
Maurice

[martin123]

Got it working, just had to rename ksu-config.ini.
FOund the file in a folder named SPB-Data. When I use the export feature from stepup-tools to VMRL and STEP, files are stored in SPB-Data.
Is it a way to set the export folder to the same as the same folder I opened the footprint?

[maui]

@martin123

Got it working

good!

@martin123

When I use the export feature from stepup-tools to VMRL and STEP, files are stored in SPB-Data. Is it a way to set the export folder to the same as the same folder I opened the footprint?

If you start modeling or Save your Part in FC format .FCStd your export will be in the same folder of your FC file; starting from a STEP model, not saved as FC file, the export will be in the folder configured as the prefix of your 3D models… (in your case it should be the SPB-Data folder I suppose)
Maurice

[martin123]

Have one more question.

is it possible to not have Stepup-tools window be set to “always on top”?
A bit annoying when you switch between programs and that windows is blocking parts of the screen.

[maui]

@martin123

is it possible to not have Stepup-tools window be set to “always on top”?

if you just minimize it it will not “stay on top”…

I’m working on a dockable version… but it will take a bit … (working on it on spare time )

[Shack]

Hey Maurice

once again thanks for the awesome job
since I have quite a few board outlines made as a footprint (I know its not officialy supported by Kicad)
I was wondering if it could be supported in Stepup
I have been trying to play around with your macro and got it to read the edge cut, simply by adding “or ‘fp_line’” in the routineDrawPCB function. but I cant figure where you read the position and rotation of the footprint in the code.

Cheers
Frank Severinsen

[maui]

Hi @Shack
following this conversation

High Voltage Footprints with PCB Cutouts

this condition cannot be tested because it is not allowed by the editor… so imo it is not a bug, but a feature request… anyway I consider this also useful (I do similar tricks often); thus removing this limitation of the editor would be appreciated M

I’ve already implemented cutout for footprints (also if it is not officially supported in kicad), so it should work also for the all board outline as footprint
If you want you can send me, by message or uploading here, a bare board cutout as footprint to let me do some more checking …
I should be able to deploy the new release in few days (doing some checking now)…
still in development the docking option (that will be probably added during XMas )

[Shack]

thats is so beautiful! I have PM’ed my board outline footprint
does your code figure out if the edgecut is inside another edgecut aka if its the board outline or a hole?
please let me know if I can be helpful somehow I would especially like to do some beta testing.

thanks for your awesome work!

Cheers Frank Severinsen

[maui]

@Shack

does your code figure out if the edgecut is inside another edgecut aka if its the board outline or a hole?

it should…
here is the board inserted in kicad as module and loaded in FreeCAD by StepUp

EDIT:
it does

[kdpatino]

Hi @maui your project is amazing!!!

I am using it, I just tried with a little project and it works prefect . But I try with a big project and always when I load the the *.kicad_pcb stay in start cuting. Maybe you could help me with it.

Thanks

[kdpatino]

I get more information: