kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Lorenzo Marcantonio <l.marcantonio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2010, Alex G wrote:

> That's an even better idea, but is there a way in kicad to store lines
> on the comments layer within the footprint library? I can see why we
> wouldn't want to contaminate the silkscreen with backyards (oh, I meant
> courtyards).

Sure, no problem... right click on the artwork, edit/edit layer
(current) :D
There are 2 issues with that:
1) You have to do it for one item at a time
2) There are no comment layer which 'flips' to the other side like silk,
paste, adhesive or mask.

The first is really a no-issue since there are usually few lines... for
the second thing you could use the adhesive layer (but that's an hack)
or 'suggest' that, for example, the ECO1/ECO2 layer would be changed to
ECO_Front/ECO_Back or some similar improvement in the layer setup.

> You're doing good. I can't afford really big SCR's, and even if I could,
> no one is going to give me 30A of AC power. I'd probably blow the fuses

30A on 24VAC is not a lot (actually, its a 'little' water heater in this
case). But amps *still* heat copper a lot. And that's not really big,
they call it 'medium power' (look for the vishay 50RIA thing). It's
a lot inconvenient because a) is essentially a thing screwed on the
board with flying wires and b) you need a mos to trigger its gate (about
150mA of current for turning it on...)

> off. And of course, by optical inspection, I'm assuming you mean
> something else than an eyemetric inspection.

I mean a CNC camera with stored how the board should look like, of
course :D

> What do you use for generating the artwork? I need to stick two
> transparencies on top of each other to avoid pinholes. And if I'm lucky,
> I get horizontal lines of toner going straight through the board, just
> asking for a nice cutter-job after the board is etched.

I cheat, I submit the gerbers to a board manufacturer :D:D at a pro
level it cost *less* than hand doing the whole thing, and result are
guaranteed. I hand produce only the occasional single side for throw
away experiments.

> You have some interesting footprints. Perhaps after Oyvind releases his
> generator script, you may make some 3d packades for them.

I don't use the 3d packages, actually :D BTW I'm trying to reduce the
IPC specs to a latex doc and some sample code to spread the knowledge.

--
Lorenzo Marcantonio
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