Need basic help with using panelize.py

Layout
1

I have a small pcb done in Kicad and it works. We buy a small panel of 5 and cut them by hand. We would like to make a big panel and have Seed vcut (vscribe?) arround each board on a panel of 200.The board is tiny btw 6.75x18.5mm.

I recently found panalize.py that is susposed to run in the python script window but I can’t get it to work. I am not sure but it may be a path problem. I am not sure where to put the panalize.py file. its at C:\Users\david\Documents\Kicad\panelize.py and the file I want to panelize is at C:\Users\davidC:\Users\david\Documents\dock2\dock2.kicad_pcb. I usually get errors saying ‘panalize’ is not defined or a syntax error pointing to the : in C:… when I try different combinations. It looks like python is living on drive D: (“D:\Program Files\KiCad\lib\python2.7\site-packages\wx-3.0-msw/wx/py/path.py”, ) but I can’t seem to cd to C:\ to get to C:\Users\davidC:\Users\david\Documents\dock2 where my file is.

Any suggestions?

2

If this is just for production and the layout works and is not touched anymore… why not use the array function build into PCBnew (OpenGL canvas)?
Just don’t copy the board outline, but instead redraw it afterwards to fit your use case (around all boards) and put the V-scores on some other layer…

3

OMG thank you! The key part was you saying OpenGL canvas. I didn’t have that on so I didn’t have the array option for blocks, just for footprints.

4

PS Create array worked great for placing the Vcut lines too.

1 Like