kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Chris Pavlina <pavlina.chris@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is already available in the Plot dialog: "Do not tent vias". Other devs,
what do you think about adding it to Print as well?

On Sun, Jun 12, 2016 at 05:25:21PM +0200, Cheng Sheng wrote:
> Hi KiCad Developers,
> 
> I made a feature for my own hobbyist use (to etch my own PCB boards). I
> don't know how much the community welcomes such hobbyist-oriented features.
> So I'd like to ask the mail-list before I send out a pull request. Guess
> the answer leans positive because I already saw some hobbyist-friendly
> features inside the "File->Print" dialog of pcbnew (eg., small drill).
> 
> The use-case: vias of hobby-etched PCBs are usually hand-soldered with a
> wire (I suppose most hobbyists don't eletroplate their through-holes), thus
> needs to be exposed on the solder mask layers. Currently, the printed
> images don't have vias on the solder mask layers.
> 
> (It is still doable on the current version to produce a desired F.Mask or
> B.Mask image by hacking the Gerber files, by overlaying a hacked drill file
> on a mask Gerber file, and exporting in the Gerber viewer. But this is too
> many steps to do.)
> 
> Happily finding how easy it is to compile KiCad source code, I decide to
> add the required functionality myself. Here it is:
> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~jeru-sheng/kicad/kicad-feature/revision/6924
> 
> What it does is: If a via appears on F.Cu layer, print it also on F.Mask
> layer; same for B.Cu layer via on B.Mask layer.
> 
> The new functionality is controllable in "File->Print" menu as a check box:
> [image: Inline image 1]
> 
> Given the following pcb traces:
> [image: Inline image 4]
> 
> When the check box is off:
> [image: Inline image 2]
> 
> When it is on:
> [image: Inline image 3]
> (so it seems the vias are on all copper layers, even if the traces it is
> connected to are not on all layers).
> 
> And this does not affect Gerber plot even when the check box is on:
> [image: Inline image 5]
> 
> Look forward to hearing back.
> 
> Regards,
> Cheng Sheng