Hi,
I’m using a CNC router to make my prototypes. Hence, by default, the copper is everywhere around the tracks, leaving an isolation inherent to the engraving parameters and the mill diameter. I need to remove the unwanted copper in the high voltage areas only, keeping a 1.5mm (or more) nominal isolation where possible (when it isn’t, slots or coating will be used).
I painfully created by hand a kind of keepout area on Eco2.User and used it under Flatcam, with the painting function to eliminate the copper. That’s working fine but the hand-made contour on Eco2.User is tedious to draw with the mouse. I’n not really young so I’m looking for another process more automated, preferably still under kicad.
In fact a kind of “filled zones” function, not attaching the copper to a net but instead, automatically attaching a guard around all the selected nets, with a configurable distance would do the trick.
The “keepout area” function is interesting but limited to copper layers, not configurable and tedious to adjust.
Did someone succeed to automate the “no-copper mask” within kicad ??
TIA
Have you tried increasing the net clearance of the HV lines? Or would the pin spacing at either end of the HV lines violate a higher clearance value?
Maybe get some corona dope to paint over the HV traces after milling? (Link is just the first google hit for this product.) For the HV lines on some neutron monitors (NM64 if you know what that means) that I used to work on, we would cover the HV lines on fully fabricated PCBs because we found that over long operation the HV traces would accumulate dust through static attraction, eventually leading to charge bleeding even with soldermask. Adding the corona dope helped prolong the lifetime of our HV sections.
Hi,
Yes, pin spacing already violates the clearance value. This why I was speaking of coating. I meant conformal coating like solithane or similar.
Concerning the high voltage, it’s all relative, it won’t exceed 400 V peak in nominal use, climbing up to 2 or 3 kV short (microseconds) spikes.
The problem is to eliminate the copper where it’s not desired with the most automated process.