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Everything PCB with OSH Park Hack Chat Transcript: Part 1

A event log for Everything PCB with OSH Park Hack Chat

Dan and Drew from OSH Park will be talking about everything PCB, from artwork to 2 layer flexible PCB testing and beyond.

lutetiumLutetium 03/02/2018 at 20:340 Comments

Stephen says: 
Okay, let's get this PCB party started!

Add your questions in the discussion here and I'll ask them throughout the chat: https://hackaday.io/event/63030-everything-pcb-with-osh-park-hack-chat

A big welcome to @Dan Sheadel and Drew @oshpark ! Why don't we start off with both of you telling us a little bit about yourself?

Dan Sheadel says: 
(for reference, here's why we can't be trusted to label things)

Nick Sayer says: 
@Thomas Shaddack That's fair. They're just not-so-awesome when they escape their containment.

Mohammad AL-Hamad says:
usually, i label my PCB using the copper in the design

Stephen says: 
HAH @Dan Sheadel

oshpark says: 
Hi, this is Drew Fustini from OSH Park. Here is a list I'm working on of PCB projects with awesome artwork:

http://blog.oshpark.com/2018/03/02/pcb-projects-with-awesome-artwork/

oshpark says: 
I'm always amazed by the creative ways that people are able to use fiberglass, copper, silkscreen and soldermask :)

Daniel Velazquez says:
Silkscreen is not reallt needed

Dan Sheadel says:
Anyway, on point! Hi! I'm Dan! I'm a mash of Support and dev, mostly working on the backend but also managing front end updates and fixes.

Dan Sheadel says:
Fan of board art, tiny useless robots, and an FRC mentor, hence they byline on the hackaday blog. :)

Stephen says:
That's awesome, so glad to have you two on the chat. Let's start this Q&A with the basics before ramping up. Julius (Mr. Seeker) asks:

If you want to start PCB design, what software would you guys recommend, besides Eagle?

oshpark says:
I am an Open Source Hardware designer here at OSH Park and am also a member of the BeagleBoard.org Foundation board of directors. I can often be found at hardware meetups wearing purple :)

oshpark says:
-Drew Fustini

Stephen says:
SO MUCH PURPLE

oshpark says:
Always :D

Dan Sheadel says:
Totes! Kicad and Eagle are the ones we're fans of. As far as hobby work goes, I think they're the most well rounded and usable.

Non-ICE says:
I've used Designspark too, tho it has its downsides

oshpark says:
Within OSH Park, we are split about 50/50 between EAGLE and KiCad. I (Drew) use KiCad for my projects while Dan usually uses EAGLE. Both are very popular tools with our customers

Non-ICE says:
from RS components

Mohammad AL-Hamad says:
i prefer KiCad

Robert Marosi says:
How can someone get into industry software like Altium or OrCad without paying so much?

Nick Sayer says:
I promise to keep mostly quiet, but one advice for beginners is to try both and then figure out which one you like the best. After you are down the road, you'll build up libraries of parts and footprints that will make you very *sticky* to the tool - changing will be a hassle you won't want to do.

Boian Mitov says:
Hello everyone, sorry for the late join :-(

oshpark says:
For anyone interested in learning KiCad, we recommend this tutorial: https://contextualelectronics.com/courses/getting-to-blinky/

Dan Sheadel says:
We've heard DipTrace and Designspark are both pretty usable. Haven't used them. If you have a school or university, you can try Altium or ORCAD a lot of time.

Mohammad AL-Hamad says:
I used both Kicad and Eagle

Robert Marosi says:
How can someone get into industry software like Altium or OrCad without paying so much?

Nick Sayer says:
I promise to keep mostly quiet, but one advice for beginners is to try both and then figure out which one you like the best. After you are down the road, you'll build up libraries of parts and footprints that will make you very *sticky* to the tool - changing will be a hassle you won't want to do.

oshpark says:
For anyone interested in learning KiCad, we recommend this tutorial: https://contextualelectronics.com/courses/getting-to-blinky/

Dan Sheadel says:
We've heard DipTrace and Designspark are both pretty usable. Haven't used them. If you have a school or university, you can try Altium or ORCAD a lot of time.

Mohammad AL-Hamad says:
I used both Kicad and Eagle

Dan Sheadel says:
Mostly, the best advice is that

A) PCB tools are all awful. Hands down.

B) Find the one you spend the least time fighting with,

C ) Get used to one that won't bottleneck you for the forseeable future.

Stephen says:
It's an endless debate for sure. Next question is from me!

When making PCB art, which parts of the design are better to do in your CAD suite and which designs are best to be imported from another softare?

Daniel Velazquez says:
What is Oshpark (me googling)

oshpark says:
@Andrew Sowa has been having great success doing PCB in KiCad:

https://blog.oshpark.com/2017/03/30/creating-the-benchoff-nickel/

Robert Marosi says:
I tried Mentor once, couldn't even get started since i couldn't find documentation anywhere

r miloh alexander says:
i'm here to mention pcb-rnd for *nux users and fans of the unix philosophy, it has a lot going for it. http://repo.hu/projects/pcb-rnd/

Dan Sheadel says:
Personally, I do _all_ my PCB art in Eagle.

Jon Raymond says:
@Nick Sayer Totally agree. I have hundreds of custom footprints in eagle I would hate to have to move to another tool.

x says:
PCBmodE? http://pcbmode.com/ from Boldport

Dan Sheadel says:
If you're used to things like Inkscape that can generate SVGs, you can get _really_ good art with litlte hassle for most tools.

oshpark says:
Often I will do my artwork in a photo editing program (GIMP) and then import as a bitmap (into KiCad).

Taylor Street says:
@Jon Raymond KiCad can readily read Eagle footprints.

Dan Sheadel says:
If you have to rasterize it (bitmaps) you'll run into problems with DPI, post processing, sizes, etc. It can be a mess. Some tools do better than others here.

oshpark says:
People often find success doing vector graphics and importing a SVG or DXF

Nick Sayer says:
Ooh. I use Omnigraffle to make SVGs for laser-cutting designs. I haven't considered attempting to import SVGs into - say - the outline layer in EAGLE.....

Dan Sheadel says:
Eagle does SVG import REALLY well. Way better than it does bitmaps (bleh).

oshpark says:
@Benchoff has some good notes here https://hackaday.io/project/18508-mr-robot-badge/log/53901-this-is-how-you-do-art-in-kicad

Jon Raymond says:
@Taylor Street nice, I've tried to do the Kicad thing several times, I get frustrated and go back to Eagle every time.

Nick Sayer says:
I will have to deeply ponder that....

Taylor Street says:
Haha, that's how I feel about Eagle!

Benchoff says: 
^ take beziers, add anchor points, simplify, straight lines only.

oshpark says:
facelesstech also has some good tips http://blog.oshpark.com/2017/01/08/convert-inkscape-svg-drawings-to-kicad-footprints/

Dan Sheadel says:
Keep in mind if you export a Polygon, a lot of import tools can keep that! So if you're doing SVG art, it should import as an appropriate filled zone/polygon.

happyday.mjohnson says:
i'm self taught. i'd like to improve my PCB layout skills especially when it comes to minimizing signal noise. do you have an recommendations for learning material?

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
looks like I'm here to catch this one

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
what up people

anfractuosity says:
isn't eagle now on a licence you have to pay / year for?

oshpark says:
Uri Shaked also documents his process that he used for heart PCB:

http://blog.oshpark.com/2017/03/28/heart-shaped-flashlight-pcb/

oshpark says:
A Practical Guide to Designing PCB Art

oshpark says:

https://medium.com/@urish/a-practical-guide-to-designing-pcb-art-b5aa22926a5c

MEDIUM URI SHAKED

A Practical Guide to Designing PCB Art - Uri Shaked - Medium

Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are literally all around us: nearly every consumer electronic good contains a PCB, and more and more we see people designing their own to use in their DIY electronics projects - I've certainly designed a few myself for all kinds of funky projects!

Read this on Medium >

Dan Sheadel says:
> isn't eagle now on a licence you have to pay / year for?

For the paid versions. The free versions are still, helpfully, free.

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
If you want to learn how to mitigate noise in PCBs there are tons of white papers on the subject by most semiconductor manufactures

Nick Sayer says:
@anfractuosity Yes - but there's a good argument as to why that's better, but it's off-topic here. Contact me offline if you want to hear it.

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
a little googling and you'll find plenty

Dan Sheadel says:
If it helps justify it, AutoDesk is ACTUALLY updating it with a lot of significant changes. They're a rare case where a subscription is actually somewhat justifiable, although there's still lots of debate here.

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
given that professional software tools receive a lot of updates every year

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
and you work with a bunch of outside companies

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
it makes sense to subscribe and be at the latest

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
instead of bying a new copy fo a lump sum yearly

Carrie Sundra says:
@happyday.mjohnson if you have a specific circuit in mind, datasheets and app notes are your friend!

Stephen says:
These are good thoughts and resources around PCB art! Lets remember to keep some of the questions and commenting in the discussion on this page, and give Dan and Drew the stage to share. https://hackaday.io/event/63030-everything-pcb-with-osh-park-hack-chat

Kevin says:
Those are some awesome art based PCBs that were pointed to earlier. :)

oshpark says:
again for those that missed it. here is a list of some projects with awesome PCB art:

http://blog.oshpark.com/2018/03/02/pcb-projects-with-awesome-artwork/

Dan Sheadel says:
Heh. To round off the original question,

> When making PCB art, which parts of the design are better to do in your CAD suite and which designs are best to be imported from another softare?

As a guideline, probably keep the electrical stuff in the design. Do what you can do easily in the tool, and do external tools and imports for the hard stuff.

Stephen says:
Next question for you @Dan Sheadel and @oshpark. This one is from x: What do you think of PCBmodE any other interesting design centric PCB tools?

oshpark says:
I believe in the future @Andrew Sowa will be doing a hackchat about pcb artwork so he can talk more about his process. He love what did with this full panel sign for us!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcGrEupBJQi/

Dan Sheadel says:
I actually tried PCBMode, and was SUPER excited about it originally. Sadly, it really didn't fit the bill of being an "art focused pcb tool", and was more aof a "pcb focused art tool". S, the PCB side really suffered with the workflow. The art side was also super rough.

oshpark says:
He has a great process for converting photos into PCB http://andrewsowa.com/blog/2017/12/18/pay-what-you-want-pcb-art

Dan Sheadel says:
I REALLY wish that rather than making _new_ tools, what happens is that existing open tools get upgrades to allow art creation more easily. Kicad in particular.

oshpark says:
The Boldport designs really show off the power of PCBmodE

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
totally a ton of potential for KiCAD to get plugins like that

oshpark says:
Unfortunately, I don't have much direct experience with the tool but Saar's work is very impressive

Dan Sheadel says:
In my opinion, the best PCB art is a functional board that has a lot of artistic touches, rather than just art.

oshpark says:
> totally a ton of potential for KiCAD to get plugins like that

Interesting idea!

x says:
@Dan Sheadel agreed lets get more features in KiCad, and Boldport is epic for inspirational art in PCB form factor

Stephen says:
I third that sentiment

oshpark says:
regarding other software, @Blake Ramsdell has created software for doing PCB paints

oshpark says:
https://hackaday.io/page/3353-full-panel-pcb-painting-fabricated

HACKADAY

Full Panel PCB Painting -- Fabricated! * Blake Ramsdell * Hackaday.io

Happy to consider commissions and suggestions for future pieces. If it can be represented as a bitmap, it can be rendered as a PCB Painting! Please comment below with your thoughts.

Read this on Hackaday >

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
@oshpark reason I say that, is because in my professional opinion KiCAD is very powerful, I hold it in the same regard as Altium Designer. And given that it has a framework for adding features its just a matter of time

r miloh alexander says:
hi drew!

do you see any pcb artists using halftoning? with a limited palette it sounds like a good direction to head in.

anfractuosity says:
i used https://github.com/mtl/svg2mod a while ago with kicad iirc for simpleish stuff

Stephen says:
Alright, we have a ton of OSH Park specific questions, so let's move into those!

oshpark says:
checkout Blake's profile https://hackaday.io/bcr

Stephen says:
Jon Raymond asks:

Any plans to offer alternative solder mask colours? Also, have flexible pcbs been deemed a viable option?

oshpark says:
and PCB paintings group for more info https://www.facebook.com/pcbpaintings/

Adam Vadala-Roth says:
yeah FlexPCBs are really hot right now

Dan Sheadel says:
I know EvilMadScience did some sort of half-toning style boards a while back, but I'm pretty sure it's actually a slight different algorithm.

x says:
EvilMadScience used some kind of error diffusion as well in their half-toning technique

Dan Sheadel says:
> Any plans to offer alternative solder mask colours?

It's possible. We're getting to the point where we can do a new color on a 3 week turn time (probably). We'd need to figure out a color though, and run some tests to make sure it's pretty enough.

r miloh alexander says:
ah yes, i believe that EHSM workflow was inkscape > pstoedit > geda/pcb

Dan Sheadel says:
> Also, have flexible pcbs been deemed a viable option?

HOOO BOY. So far, yes, but it's been an adventure

Thomas Shaddack says:
random thought. what about making PCBs by direct deposition of conductive inks on an arbitrary substrate?

Dan Sheadel says:
We've been working on our test panels for _6 months_. W

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