Hi guys, I switched from Eagle to KiCad and I’m slowly starting to really like it.
On my PCBs I always have a lot of plated custom milling slots, which I’m doing with a separate milling layer.
This has always been fine with my PCB manufacturer and this also works with KiCad and gerber output.
But unfortunately the milling slots are not shown in the 3D viewer.
They only show up when I’m doing them in the Edge.Cuts layer, which seems to be the eagle dimension layer.
This layer is used by my PCB manufacturer for only board outlines and not for plated slots.
Is there a way to make the 3D viewer recognize my milling layer for showing the slots?
Thanks!
There are certainly KiCad footprints containing plated milling slots. I don’t know KiCad libraries but probably there is for example USB-C SMD socket having also such slots.
If you use such separate plated slots you probably can define them as footprint having one pad with such slot.
In 90s my PCB manufacturer told me to give him slots (I used not plated) at separate layer and make a note telling that this layer is milling. But about 2010 the same manufacturer told me that only what is important is to be unambiguous and if slots are at board outline layer than it is clear for him so I need not to add any describing note.
I don’t know how with plated such slots. May be slot made in copper simply means it is plated slot.
Ask him - may be he changed mind like mine between 90s and 2010.
I don’t know, but I don’t think so.
KiCad does not have a dedicated “milling layer”. As far as I know, Edge.Cuts is the only layer for milling, and it is also used for internal routing / milling, but I don’t know the details here.
Something you can do easily yourself is to experiment a bit with one of the barrel jack connectors from KiCad’s default libraries. Some of those have pads with oval holes, and those need to be both routed and plated.
As an ad-hoc method, you can use one of the user layers, You can then either communicate with your manufacturer that this layer has to be milled, or you do a bit of research into how gerber files are defined and modify the header of that file in a text editor.
That is definitely a layer mapping error. In KiCad Edge.Cuts is routing for the outside of the PCB, and also for internal routing. KiCad can try to “auto match” during a conversion from eagle, but there is no guarantee this works flawless. You have to verify that the layer mapping is done correctly manually. A lot of layers have very specific meaning (Copper, Silkscreen (legend), solder mask, paste, etc)
I also had a short peek at gitlab. I did not see feature requests for extra routing layers or depth milling, and that is a bit surprising to me.
Maybe you could ask your fab if they can handle the milled slots combined with the outline in the Edge.Cuts layer. That would make your jobs vanilla. Maybe that’s what your fab does behind the scenes with their CAM software for your jobs, and you are doing it your way because you’ve always done it this way, and it’s not necessary.
Thanks a lot for your answers!
I’ll be checking with my manufacturer, if he can use Edge.Cuts for milling slots. That would be the easiest way.
Actually I already have a custom layer for milling, that is processed separately for gerber output, which works fine with my manufacturer.
Apart from that, it would be great to have custom layer that is capable to show slots in the 3D viewer.