Embedded Developer

A recent change to a PCB design has given the opportunity to try out a couple of KiCad plugins. The board is a simple one and is used to provide feedback when running network soak tests. The board is designed for the Meadow ecosystem and is a fairly simple design consisting of:

• SSD1306 OLED display
• Indicator LEDs
• Reset button
• Headers to connect the board to a Meadow board

The board has been tested and it works well. The changes doubled the number of LEDs and changed some of the components footprints.

Round Tracks

The concept behind Round Tracks is simple, take a PCB layout and give the tracks the feel of the 1970s. It does this by taking the layout and looking for any tracks that change direction. The plugin then takes these tracks and rounds the corners.

Applying this to the OLED PCBs gives the following output:

PCBWay Plug-in for KiCad

The next plugin is the PCBWay plugin. This should take the PCB layout and generate a zip file to upload to the PCBWay web site for manufacture. It appears to be really simple to use and starts an order for you and then uploads the files into the order.

Order submitted and now we just have to wait for the PCBs to arrive.

Conclusion

Manufacturing is complete and they are now on their way. There is going to be a small wait while the PCBs make their way from China to the UK and then we can see how the plugins faired.

Update to follow in a few weeks.

Tags: Electronics, KiCad