I can churn out a prototype within a few hours. If it doesn’t work, I can churn out another.
Anyway, I’m not here to argue whether home made PCBs are the way to go or not - I’ve seen a few forum threads go a little off the rails with that argument. This thread was intended as an invitation for people to share any tricks - particularly KiCad specific that they might have. So far, it looks like I may have discounted milling as a possibility too early in my experiments, so I’ll be re-investigating that approach : )
Gerbers describe how the PCB is made: there is no hole, because the pcb process wants a solid pad, which then gets drilled and plated: the drilling information comes from the drill files.
So, looks like you may need to invest that time in doing something with those drill files.
The previous software I was using optionally exported drill holes in the Gerbers. This was quite handy for registration purposes - but I’m aware it’s suboptimal for drilling pads. It was also an all-or-nothing setting. If I could set per-pad, it would have been perfect!
Anyway, now I’m forced to do without drill holes and have instead made specific donut-shaped registration footprints, I’m finding I much prefer the results. If the drill holes are slightly off centre it no longer causes any issues, because there’s no stupidly narrow sections of copper around where the drill hole should be!
Doing something directly with the drill files is the way to go ultimately, but for now (until I get the current project production ready) I’m managing quite well with a few extra steps in my workflow.
@PolyVinalDistillate has found a way to use Kicad for his purpose. He asked if anyone could help improve/streamline his method, still using Kicad.
He did not ask for opinions on how a PCB should be made (strictly speaking, this would be “off topic” for this Kicad forum).
FYI, in case you didn’t see this post - I show a nicely Milled PCB…
Off topic but, of comparitive opinion… I Bake Bread, Croisants and many other goodies. I could avoid the cumbersome-ness of Baking and cleaning-up the mess and Buy them from bakery around the corner but, I like Baking. I have plenty of money and could order PCB’s from JCLPCb but, also like CNC Milling PCB’s.
