We're very pleased announce that we're finally able to direct uploads of kicad_pcb files on OSH Park!
This means that you can place an order without going through the plot process, worrying about drill formats, or fiddling with CAM settings. It also means new users can simply grab your design files and ordering without worrying about installing Kicad at all.
We aspire to follow Kicad's expected community conventions. For the most part, we're honoring whatever was set in the user's Plot settings for the last CAM generation, outside of some manufacturing related ones. On the other hand, since the only way to save plot settings is by plotting, we've set a few obvious options to defaults:
- Plot outline on all layers, which is disabled.
- Subtract silk from Mask, which is enabled. This will be done anyway during fabrication.
- Via tenting is left as the user set. That should default to "tented" on new files.
- Plot Invisible Text, which is disabled. This could be configured to user specified, but is probably a good debate topic.
Some of the more obvious CAM aspects are handled. We'll detect the layer stackup, and generate all copper layers in the correct order. If your stackup fails to be detected or appears incorrect, please let us know!
We also have one deviation from the normal Kicad plot routine: Before plotting gerbers, we update all fill zones. This helps protect against the odd case where minor via or trace tweaks results in stale ground planes causing shorts, or if a ground pour is added but never filled.
There's still some known UI issues which are being resolved, most notably blank layers generate a "removing blank layer filename.kicad_pcb", rather than the correct layer name.
NOTE: visit Kicad.info for further discussion
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