almohajer / pcb-motor

Script to generate Carl Bugeja styled PCB motors for KiCad with Python

PCB Motors

Packages to generate a PCB motor, Carl Bugeja style, for KiCad using Python

History

Carl Bugeja shared several projects where eletric motors are made directly using PCBs, see Hackaday, Youtube Drawing these circuits can be a pain. This scripts automates the fabrication and gives an estimate for the coil resistance, magnetic field strength and heating. Note, I am mainly interested in PCB motors to spin prisms.

Install

Install poetry and python

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/python-poetry/poetry/master/get-poetry.py | python3 -

Use poetry to install the dependencies in pyproject.toml

poetry install

Change parameters in the script and run it

poetry run python spiral.py

The script modifies the base_kicad_pcb and creates a spiral.kicad_pcb. This can be opened with KiCad and should contain the motor. This design can be attached to another pcb via Kicad PCB import method. Note, this feature is only available if KiCad PCB is run in standalone mode.

Results

Script creates a 4 layer PCB motor with 6 poles. The front copper layer is shown below,

The In1.Cu layer is shown below. The style of these connections is named "Carl Bugeja" styled PCBs.