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PCB generator and helper plugin for KiCad

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adamws:
Hi,

those of you who did PCB design probably know that manual placement of elements is tedious task. For me it was unbearable so I decided to automate this with KiCad API.
My work can be found at https://github.com/adamws/kicad-kbplacer
It is not yet polished but should be usable at this stage. So far I did 4 projects with it and it was a breeze.

I would like to hear your feedback and suggestions about features you would like to see.

Zustiur:
I did wonder if such a tool existed. I've finished my layout for now but will try to remember this next time.

adamws:
This project was in my backlog for a while but I picked it up again and here are the results: https://github.com/adamws/keyboard-tools
It's yet another PCB generator but with slightly different approach in terms of implementation. It can be played with here http://keyboard-tools.xyz/ - I also prepared short guide: https://adamws.github.io/keyboard-tools/kicad-project-generator/guide.html

Backbone of this project is plugin I shared earlier, but it should be easier to use this way.

suicidal_orange:
Looks like an easy way to get most of the traces done, thanks for sharing :thumb:

adamws:
I've just added new feature. My netlist generation script is now able to include simple atmega32u4 circuit (https://github.com/adamws/kle2netlist/blob/master/kle2netlist/skidl.py#L218) which can be copied to generated kicad project from template file (https://github.com/adamws/kle2netlist/blob/master/kicad-templates/atmega32u4-au-v1/atmega32u4-au-v1.kicad_pcb). This is how PCB looks like straight out of my website:

so in theory, user does not have to design controller circuit in separate step (described here https://adamws.github.io/keyboard-tools/kicad-project-generator/guide.html) if simple generic one is sufficient.
Once I figure out how to copy everything from template (including tracks which are right now missing) the only manual part would be controller-matrix routing and usb routing.
This will remain as an option and old workflow is still working.
I might also add some parameter options to controller circuit but at this stage, from functional point of view, project does pretty much what I wanted.

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