danidask / kicad2jlcpcb

Plugin for KiCad 5 that allows generate files for jlcpcb pcb manufacturing and assembly service

kicad2jlcpcb

Plugin for KiCad 5 that allows generate files for jlcpcb pcb manufacturing and assembly service
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Table of Contents

• How to install
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation or upgrade
• How to use
  • Convention
  • How to add custom fields
  • How to generate the fabrication files
    • POS File
    • BOM File
    • Options
  • Example output
• Contributing
• License
• Acknowledgements

How to install

Prerequisites

kicad2jlcpcb is a python module. In order to install it you'll need:

• python version 3.5 or above
• pip

TODO instructions of how to install these in each operating system

Installation or upgrade

pip install git+https://github.com/danidask/kicad2jlcpcb --upgrade

NOTE: If you have multiple versions of python in your machine, use a specific pip version, like pip3 or pip3.6

How to use

This plugin will read custom fields in the parts, in order to know the part number, and if the fab house will place this component, or it'll be placed after. To acomplish this, follow the next convention:

Convention

• Each component can have a custom field named "PartNumber" with the part number
• The components can have a custom field named "Keys" with one or several special words, separeted by commas:
  • DNP (Do Not Place) This component will not be sent for assambley and will be included in a separated BOM file
  • EXCLUDE This component will not apear in any of the BOM files (ej mounting holes, logos...)

How to add custom fields

To add this custom fields in kicad 5.1:

• Select the component (left click)
• Press "E" to open symbol properties
• Add Field (plus sign)

How to generate the fabrication files

POS File

The .pos file (footprint position) must be the first file to generate. From Pcbnew (layout view) File -> Fabrication Outputs -> pos file
options: CSV format, mm unit, and "single file for board"
Leave "Output directory" blank to generate the file in the project root*
"Generate position file" and "close"
This have a generic format and will be converted to the rigth format in the next step
NOTE: If you want to export to some other folder instead of root, you'll need to add the argument -p foldername to the script, si it'll be able to find the pos files

BOM File

Eeschema > tools > generate bill of materials

write this in "command line" field, and then click "generate"

kicad2jlcpcb "%I"

Kicad will generate a xml file with all the parts and pass it to the script as %I argument. The script will parse the xml file and generate the fabrication files with the necessary format.

Options

Some KiCad footprints have different canonical orientations than jlcpcb. The script will fix this orientations base on a rule table.

You can override this behiveour by creating new rules in a local file cpl_rotations.csv in the project directory (the first time you run the script this file will be created).

Add the footprint full name (not regex like global rules) and the correction orientation (positive is clockwise)

You can also disable the rotations correction using the argument -s when calling the script

Open a terminal window and type kicad2jlcpcb -h to find out more about the available optional arguments

Example output

The files generated will have the format you can see in examples

Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to be learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

TODO

Warning if pos file is old

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Acknowledgements

• CPL rotation correction based of the work of Matthew Lai