Hi yes, we're back on the Gigatron PCB and doing some stuff in Kicad because if you saw my previous video which I'll link in if you haven't seen it, where I compared the difference between a 2 layer and a 4 layer PCB 4-h or magnetic field radiated emissions and that was a very interesting video. A lot of people really like that because no one had really taken the exact same design and showed the difference between the 2 layer and a 4 layer PCB before and a lot of people asked like could I actually do the 4 layer piece of be a bit different ie. well in this particular case, you'll notice that this is the 4 layer piece of B I did It has your traditional ground and power in the middle and the traces on the top and bottom. Can we zoom into that? Unfortunately I don't think we can show the inner layers inside there anyway and this is your traditional method because you say for surface mount parts, you want to route your traces on the top and bottom, you don't want to have your surface mount parts and then immediately drop down via vias down to the inner layers and then it just ruins your routing, density and all that sort of stuff.

Um, but for through-hole board like we've got here, there's no reason that the signal layers had to be on the top and the bottom. So a lot of people said hey, what's the difference if we actually bury those layers in those signal layers in the middle All these traces in here We thought the loop area that's radiating everything. What if we buried them inside the copper Plains So have the ground and the power on the outside and the 2 signal layers on the inside so it's an interest. An interesting experiment.

So I'm going to do that now. So what I'm going to do is I've created a duplicate version I'm still running 5.00 I know there's a later version but I just want to use the same one I've already got installed so let's actually load this up. Alright so let's drag it over. And by the way, thank you to people on the Kicad forum because this is actually tricky I couldn't figure out how to do this and I'll explain in depth shortly and a few and somebody I think basically had the right approach for Thank You e lick here.

A lot of people said like and I'll show you in a minute there other techniques to do what I want to do to actually swap all these layers because if I want to relay out the board I want to keep everything absolutely identical. So so let's actually load it up. So I've created a duplicate board here. Okay, so we've got where if we take off the layers here.

Okay, we've got our top and bottom layers here and then out in a copper VCC and ground like this. Okay, so now what we want to do is swap these layers and as it turns out, like there is a layer swap tool if you actually go in here and there's a move and swap layers and you can actually go there and you can kind of sort of do it. but I found it didn't actually work. it didn't do exactly what I wanted.

So what I want to actually do this is trivial to doing out him I used to do it all the time it out iam and as it turns out, it works this similar way here. it's just that I couldn't actually find it. So I want to move all of these top layer traces here to the inner layer which is currently called VCC like that and I want to move the bottom layer ones to the inner layer here which is ground. So if we go to our stack up here, we've got a four layer board.

Now you can actually do this many different ways. You can create extra layers and then copy them the extra layers. but I don't think we have to actually do that. So what I'm gonna do is I First, I'm gonna change VCC and ground from power planes to signal planes because effectively, we're doing polygons.

pause anyway. so it makes you know it: polygons or zones as they're called here copper zones so it makes no difference. So let's actually change those over to signal layers. Okay, first of all, we'll just delete our plane here I can probably drag it off or move, or swap the layers and stuff like that I just don't want to.

I will just do it from scratch, shall we? Because if we go in here and then we select this layer here I Don't think yeah I Don't think we can actually swap the layer of that zone so we have to place a new zone. Maybe there is a way to do it or whatever I don't know. Anyway, we'll delete our copper zones and you'll see all of our Nets are now unconnected all of our positive which is called haitch. That's just the designers on the schematic chose the name h4 Hi and l4 Lo.

they're actually VCC and ground. Ok, so all these nets are unconnected. That's what all these nets here mean. Now if we go back into our top layer or FCU you, it's a running joke in the Kicad forum, is it? Anyway, what what we can do now is simply I'm still getting used to they've got a hold down the middle thing.

Anyway, let's select all of our items in here, but unfortunately selects all the components. But we can go in there and we can select and we can filter our selection. and by default it's got everything so we don't want footprints. we do want tracks.

we don't want vias because we can just leave them there or actually just swap in everything over and hopefully it because the vias need to go to a certain net. Hopefully it won't screw up the nets and everything else. I Want to turn everything off and all we get selected is our tracks like that. Fantastic! Ok, so we've got just our traces now in there so we can actually go in.

Let's right-click and let's go into properties like this. and then for the traces. Unlike the zones, it gives you the ability to simply to change the layer that you're on now. I've tried to actually copy and paste to another layer that doesn't seem to work, so don't do that.

Altium has an option. When you paste, it's like paste on this layer so you can take something from another layer, highlight it, copy it, and then paste it to the current layer. It looks like that key code does not have that option. Anyway, we can simply just transfer those traces right over Bingo.

they're gone and the videos as you can see are still all the same. nets and everything like that because we're not changing anything else. and if we go into Copper sorry if we go into VCC layout. Bingo! Our traces are now transferred into there and we can go and do an identical thing to the bottom layer.

It's too easy, we just highlight like that and our filter selection traces. That's it. Boom! Properties born, ground, done and Bingo! We now have the VCC and ground layers which we'll have to rename of course because they're no longer that we can just go into. Let's just call it in a top and in a bottom like that and we'll leave it FCU and PCU.

It doesn't matter and we don't have to change that back to power Plane. There's no reason for us to do that because it's going to give us the positive I Don't think it inverts it on the Gerber's Anyway, we still have all these traces. So now we have to go in and we have to pour our copper. So let's go to the bottom.

first. We'll pour our bottom copper and we'll place a copper zone like this and we don't want to go too near the edge. That's annoying. The board is actually off the grid so I can't like put it in exact distance away.

That's kind of annoying isn't it? It's like half a grid. Maybe if I change the grid size 25 mils. there you go, change the grid size so we're good to go. Let's we could scroll down to hey, what low L or we can apply a filter and then we can just find it like that.

That's probably easier. We're just going to leave it because I believe I Used all the defaults last time, the thermal relieves and everything so it's gonna connect to the low. You see that low is unconnected at the moment with all those rat's nest. Nets So let's go all the way with LBJ over here.

I am going to do something special on this board in a minute. I'm thinking about taking the copper all the way to the edge, but I won't just for cleanliness just for you know, a good practice. I won't take it all the way with LBJ right to the edge. There you go.

and I can't actually complete that I believe can you I think you can right? click and clothes on our line? Boom. Okay, we're in now. It's exactly the same as before. Yes, the copper before did not go through the pads.

It's just the that was those clearances by chosing there I'm going to leave that exactly the same. So idea. This is not technically best case because if you were like loop areas would be flowing around like this. You know if you if you had a trace connected in here and the current the return path had to get from this bit of copper over to here then it would have to go right around here instead of going through the individual pin.

So this ground plane is not as good as it could be, but you saw the dramatic difference in the previous video of the radiated emissions between the two layer and the four layer. So I'm gonna leave it exactly the same now the top layer. We can do the same now. I said that I wanted to do something special on the top layer and I'll explain in a minute.

I'm gonna actually take this back a significant margin here. Let's just say center of that H apply filter. Still not used to using key care, but it really doesn't take much. Doesn't take much doing to learn it.

It's pretty good. So is that D Yeah yeah I was just taking the center of those pads just because. and I explain what I'm gonna do in a minute I Have a devious plan. Why didn't we get why didn't we get it connected? Oops.

Ah, once again I placed I didn't have it selected. That's really annoying I didn't have the layer selected even though it's disconnect. like how can you work on a non displayed layer I reckon that's oh yeah. anyway.

I'm selecting it with the blue thing here. Maybe if I was in single layer display mode, it would have been Anyway, Whatever. Okay, let's do that again. I Like how it's centers.

when you like the center, you move your mouse pointer and then when you zoom in with the inner mouse wheel, it centers on that. That's really quite nice. Close own outline. Bingo There we go.

So now you'll notice that all the rats nests are gone because our yeah, there it is H is being connected and if you go through to the bottom layer, you'll see that all the ELLs are being H What did I screw the pooch? have they both got? H Yeah I've created that out for manufacture. Your ground planes are short of what have they done? Probably screaming at me I Don't like that you can't click in the middle of that layer I find that really annoying copper bottom copper is L yeah I think I I Completely screwed that there we go top is now connected to just testing you, making sure your donors Okay, so our top layer. but now you'll notice that our top layer is pulled back from the edge like this because the rear what I want to do is also. not only do I want to see if there's a difference between having the grounds on the outside and ground and power on the outside versus the inner layers and there will be.

it's just a matter of how much really in terms of H-field emissions far-field emissions once again, and when I have these three boards different types, the two layer one, the four layer with the grounds and power in the middle, the four layer with ground and power on the outside. This will give me some fantastic references to do some far field measurements. perhaps in an outside, an open area, outdoor test our site even in my own lab or at a fully to full compliance some EMC test house. That'll be really cool if I can swing that anyway.

So the H all we've got I got Ned over here. Hello hello, Why aren't you connected? What's what's wrong with you? You're connected. Look at that, is it. What's going on? Got two perfectly good, um, thermal reliefs going in.

There is nothing wrong with that at all. That's Buddhists Anyway, Top Silk I change that Dave cared-for layer outer. If you've got an innie or an outer four layer outer, there you go. What I want to do is actually see if it makes any difference if you put copper tape around the outer edges.

Now, of course you wouldn't do this in production of course, but a lot of boards, especially RF ones and things like that might have the edges actually gold-plated as well and they're connected to the ground pane sort of like to form like a shielded box around everything. so all your signal layers are enclosed inside. so I can't like radiate out the sides and stuff like that. So what I want to do is add some extra copper on this top layer here, but it's got to be connected to ground.

I can't have the power there. so I'll add in some extra about copper fills in here some extra zones non copper zone properties. No Ah, cuz I've right there you go because I've just got the bloody Silk selector. There we go.

I'm still getting used to this here. we go right? So I want it connected to L which is my ground? Okay, yeah, happy. Can I create a polygon that? no, no. I'll just create four but four overlapping polygons.

Thank you very much. I know I can do it as two overlapping polygons. Look here we go. look.

I'll be I'll be fancy pantsy look. All right. I'll go over to here. Yeah here like this.

we'll pull it back. Okay so I don't want it to be touching the other ground, the other the positive one there and we go like this and we'll go up here and we can close own outline and that unfortunately because there's nothing to connect to if the zone is there. but it hasn't created like it hasn't connected through to copper. So what we'll do: Copy a via.

Oh hello, that's it. What's wrong with that trace? That tray sucks. Look at that. that's terrible.

Muriel I I could place a via but I want it to be exactly the same like and I know what the current settings and all that sort of stuff Oh taste and then I'll change it there shall we through net. he'll boom like that. and if we reap or how do we reap or our copper can we just hit? Okay, well that. yep there we go.

So it's now. It's decided to lay that copper down there because we've got the one via. So I'm gonna put a bunch of veers around here. It's oh yeah.

look at. split it down here. There you go. Oh Also put the extra one around the outside and that'll be connected to ground and then we have to expose the solder mask as well top and bottom so that we can see this.

I'll spare you the details I'll go to the finish product. Well, that's annoying. I Just copied this via here and it did not automatically copy the net as well. So there you go.

that's a thing. but I find that if I now paste another V R in there should connect. No, it doesn't. doesn't automatically connect.

Is there an option that is really annoying? Wow Usenet Class note Design Yeah, that's that's really annoying. Maybe there is a way. I'm not gonna say there's not, but that means I can't bulk copy I can't just paste them and have it I could go in and manually change it. Really, that's annoying I'm sure the Kicad experts will tell me not as a way to do that and there probably is, but if there's not, Tim will should be.

so. I don't care if these are exactly If I was laying out a board for real I would make sure that these are all evenly spaced or whatnot, but you'll see this all the time where we're just by placing the multiple vias here. we just learn the inductance of around the outer edge and some people go insane. They actually stitch like V all the way around and create like a Faraday cage.

They don't want anything seeping out, but because we're going to put the copper tape, it doesn't it literally doesn't matter. So oh, actually I've run into a problem I Tried to go into the 3d viewer and it really does not like this. Unable to find the next graphic segment in point edit graphics making them continuous polygons each cannot determine the board outline. anyway.

See, we've got solder mask over our what the hell? What? What the hell has happened to all our pads? That dumb silkscreen. what looks funky? Something has gone horribly wrong with this 3d viewer. Wow that looks funky I Like that fun. I should trademark that font that looks pretty groovy heavy metal or something cool at the heavy copper font.

I'll get back to you I Have no idea why this 3d view has done this. Wow Let's go down to we can do this by going down to our front mask here and then once again place in a zone. or do we have to do a keep out area? I'm not sure. Oh and our 3d viewers back? Ok well yeah.

3d. our pads are fine. Now it's kind of good. It doesn't like the board size.

For some reason the board size has been screwed once again. like this is like the first time. I'm using Kicad so please bear with me. Oh I Think zone was the wrong thing to do? You don't want to do a zone I'm gonna kill that zone I Think we need to place she's up.

That's taking a while, not not responding I saved it didn't I Oh there we go. Ok place. Know what we want and we want to place a polygon. sorry I screwed the pooch front mask.

Ok here we go. Now we can now. I can do this. Watch this.

What is this one way? warm and end Oh What We can't there like that? There we go. Once again, it's taken a while I think we've got an error there. I've introduced some sort of issue. go into 3d again.

Bingo. Our soda mask has been removed so now we've got this copper exposed copper all around. I've got to do the same on the other edges plus on the bottom as well and then I'll have these exposed. if I get a gold-plated probably yeah, probably will and then don't have the Dineen nice gold-plated things and I'll be I would actually put some copper tape over around the outside if I want to do that thing where I seal it up.

it's just it's just a maybe it's D-day once again. I wouldn't bother fixing that pad either. like I just you know this is just a board for experimentation purposes. I'm not gonna dick around much.

uh-huh is that our furphy down there? Ah okay I think that's been moved? There you go. That's what was causing that issue there. I Think there you go. So I fix the edge cuts which is the board outline and you can see that our solder mask.

There's no solder mask on the corners or anything like that. So we've got exposed grounded copper all around the edge like that. That's just so that maybe if I want to I can do an experiment. but once again I still haven't done the bottom side there.

I'll finish that. Now there you go. That's the bottom layer. And for those curious, yes, you can actually take mask solder mask directly to the edge.

unlike copper which creates copper burrs and stuff like that. especially when you're removing solder mask like this one. So if we go up and then you're our 3d viewer, you can see that now we'll be complete. There's no problems taking that directly to the ED it's top and bottom.

Oh, we got our stupid pads. Again, got a stupid pads. Anyway, we got to a cop. I Don't I have no idea what the hell's going on there.

Wow. just wow. It's just rendering all those pads wrong. Alright, because some people are going to ask, how do you get your board to have these gold-plated edges like this? Well, this is called edge Platon that might be called.

You know, something different at some other fab, but any fab should know what edge plating means so what you wanted. If you wanted to do that, then obviously here's your like. Here's the side of the board here. you don't.

We can see that in. let's turn off our contrast mode. There you go. So we've got let's just turn on our edge cuts and our top layer.

So what you'd want to do is actually take your copper right to the edge like this and then somewhere on your fabrication drawing down here for example you might. This one doesn't have any fabrication notes, but sometimes you would have like a fabrication layer. Yeah, I don't think we have any. don't think we have any drawings user day but often you'll put all of your fabrication notes on your board like this and you'll have all your specifications.

I want Fr4 I want Rogers PCB material and put the the particular part number you want and I want this tolerance? You know I want forth our fourth, our tolerance I want gold plated? you know, immersion gold for example and I want edge plating? Please, You will specify that either on your drawing so you can just simply do it in the email to them or it might even be an option on an online PCB manufacturing tool. When you upload your Gerber's for example, there might be an option for edge played in I don't know so. but generally I've just done it manually in the past. Just tell them I want edge plating and they will do that as a separate process for you.

and if you don't take the copper to the edge, maybe they might do it for you. They might expand the copper out until right to the edge. So do whatever they have to to give you that edge plating and you know usually you want it connected to the ground, usually almost always is ground and then connect top and bottle like that you can get just the edge plate in without it being connected to everything. Anything, It can just be floating there.

But really, apart from looks, there's no other real. There's no electrical reason to do that. but in this particular case I don't want to do that because I want the option to be able to measure this with no edge plating because that's like a standard board would be. Wood have no inch plating on that.

So that's why I've peeled it back from the edge like that. Okay, so we're actually good to go Now let's go into our 3d viewer. That's what our board is going to look like. No, I don't think there's any way to show edge plating in the 3d view.

So yeah, it's just like you just have to specify that manually. but that's look. That's all right. And we've got our exposed copper around the edges which is ground, top and bottom good.

So I have the option so that looks that looks all good to go. It's looking pretty groovy in it. I like that. So yeah, I don't know where the bug is when that causes all the the funky copper font and everything else.

But anyway, So we're good to go. So now really, we want to do our Er C thing. I'm still don't know what's causing this. like why is that still showing that as a net? I Don't know.

Anyway, so now we want to do our D Arcy before we do our Gerber's because you want to make sure that you haven't screwed the pooch. So design rules, checker, We want that in there. Let's list: Oh Once again, you can put in your tolerances and stuff like that here. There's options too, like a refill or your zones before performing DRC unless you've got a second special circumstance.

I Wouldn't recommend doing that because you can screw the pooch because there's steps here you go in. We've done our layout board. We've verified it in 3d mode. 3d mode is brilliant for its what-you-see-is-what-you-get so you use that as an inspection tool.

We've done that. you lock everything down. Then we'll do our final D You can do that after your DRC but we'll just in this particular case we'll do our DRC. We might find what our two little errors will fix it.

We'll do the 3d view again and lock it all down. and then we're good to go. So you wouldn't want to refill all the zones and do the DRC and then just generate the Gerber's because refilling the zones you might have changed your clearances, your tolerance, it, you know, and all that sort of stuff in your zone. You may not get like copper through here.

for example, you wanted copper through there, but you accidentally didn't realize that you changed the clearances in for the copper zones and stuff like that for the copper pores. so you could find that it was working before when you last viewed at it. But now all your coppers broken in here and stuff like that. So really, you know, just be careful when you're refilling zones.

Report all errors for tracks. Check Footprint Our courtyard overlap. Where that's like, if you the footprints, you can specify a courtyard of components. whether it in any components are overlapping.

Feel the chip here and chip here and there. overlapping like that, then it'll flag that as an error. It's a it's a mechanical DRC error essentially. But if you don't haven't generated courtyards for your, it'll be called different things in different tools in Kiko that's called a courtyard.

If you haven't specified a courtyard for your component, then you won't have that feature. Anyway, we can like, just go. list unconnected. Here we go: I'm gonna two unconnected items, pad one on you and yeah, look there it is.

Yeah. Like, why is that unconnected? If we generate that Gerber this, this copper will be here. Our board will come back. It'll be fine.

So there's something something that's wrong with that. we can just go. Edit: Can we just edit the properties of that? I I Don't know why these pads are weird like that. I mean the when we've poured that copper zone, we've poured that copper and the software knows that it connected to this pad.

Otherwise, it had just leave the gap right around like that. So it knows to putting those thermal relieves. It knows to connect it. It knows to connected up here because it's putting these thermal release.

So why that is showing up as an error? There's got to be something subtle in there, or it's some sort of bug. So so it's not uncommon unless you're following very strict procedures where you have to have zero errors like you, you know you're at the designer review meeting before your board gets manufactured. If you've got a ridiculously complex board like one of these things, right? If you got something like this, you've designed this board here. For example, right, you've designed this board.

Oh, it's some other huge PC motherboard or something has taken you a month to layout this board, which is not uncommon, by the way. I've had boards that have taken me a month or two to layout, right? They're absolute like, you know, and this one's not enormous. ly complex, but this is a pretty advanced board. This is going to be like an eight or ten layer job or something with all these huge thousand pin count.

BGA's right, there's a lot of work that goes into that, and it's probably an expensive board to get that manufactured. especially when you've got to solder the chips on everything else, right? You don't want to goof this up, right? So there's probably going to be a designer review meeting foo there's going to be a design review meeting for this board so they're gonna say well show us your DRC report for example And there's ways to fudge. Of course you can fudge your DRC report, but if you've got something someone klouey in the design review meeting who goes well, show us the constraints that you used for your DRC that's what I'd be asking for. Show us your constraints to see if your fudge in the DRC is because anyone can make.

you can have a board riddled with errors and get your DRC errors down to zero so they can produce your report and go. here it is. There's no errors, but it's riddled with problems. so it's all about the constraints that you set up.

When you do your design rule checking and your ERC your electrical rules check in, ER C is for schematics, electrical rule checking and then DRC is for design rule checking which is for PCBs and in this particular case we could ignore that. I'm absolutely confident and we can check out verify our Gerber's that this would be fine so I could go look I just want to send this board out to one off. doesn't matter I can just ignore that so it's probably easy. but I don't know why it's doing that.

Aha I found it. Look at this. I'm on the bottom copper layer at the moment and look. L and H nets are shorted together Yeah L and H.

So why it's only given me that one error? Maybe it's suppressed all the rest. So oops, Did I forget to our rapport poly did I that's repour Polly put the kettle on. Nope. Look at that.

That's interesting. The only thing that we're going to. The only net we're going to connect to is ill weary poor that and it goes over the H net. What that? Oh I have poured multiple ones I've done multiples.

Look, it's got a H Yep, that's when I it up before. whoops. Sorry. get rid of that move.

That one back there we go is that it? I Have to read. you're all that. You think it a redraw after moving, wouldn't you? Okay, now we're good. and then I've got to go back to the top.

H and now H and if we run the DRC again I think we'll find we're good. So there you go. That's interesting that it didn't like. didn't flag like hundreds and hundreds? It should have been hundreds, of, you know.

does at least dozens of shorter connections there. Oh, it's a boy. White list of them is unconnected. That's the other thing.

So let's just anyway. let's just run that design rule check list. unconnected. It still thinks that they're unconnected.

What? What? What? Have I done the same thing on the top? Nope. There's no other hidden polygon under there, so no. So that's interesting Why it actually like that was a massive error. I had those ground planes shorted together and if we got that board manufactured if I ignored that.

Oh, there's only one unconnected pad. But I hadn't done the DRC yet. baby. But like, once again, let's go up here.

Designer or check will start the DRC Okay, boom, that's it. So maybe it would have given hundreds of errors before or something. I should have checked that track near via. Oh look, there's a little red arrow.

What's what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. AHA I was wrong. It is only reporting the first error because I didn't have this. Technic checkbox ticked.

We go. report all errors. This can be slow. if unselected.

only the first DRC violation will be displayed. So yep, there we go. So start DRC again and - to track ends - close track near via. Ok, so now there you go.

Trap for young players. Young Kicad players. So these are all my DLCs with this board. So track ends - close track near Vo we know about.

Okay, what's track ends too close? Why are the track ends? They're not tracks. There are no tracks there. So here's that where we have to go into the Detail Net Bus 7:16 on layer in a top. Oh oops, don't Yep in a top here we go.

Silly me. am I? Yep. Yep, there you go. There you go I place those vias without any thought for the tracks on the inner layers I'll that was dumb wasn't it? and I didn't have like any like online DRC to to tell me that I was being that I was being naughty.

Here you go. so that is that is correct. All right, no worries. why did I have like six markers or whatever? Anyway, well yeah if I screwed that I thought that I was away.

thought I was nowhere near him. but yeah, there's a couple down there so let's run that design rule check or again. Bingo None. We're done.

That's it though. all our do Sarah's so we've got. yep all tracks are. We're searching all tracks.

we're using our minimum track and they're these specs. I mean I'm track with 0.2 minimum voice I point for minimum microvia sighs. We don't have any micro buyers so we're good lists unconnected. The only issue we still have non copper of C6 I still don't get it is that it's got to be that.

and you want to make use of the high contrast mode here. you can just go haitch which is quite nice and then look through the layers. but like how that's a thing? that's nuts. Could you know like there's nothing extra like sometimes you might have something extra hidden under there, but there's not.

like if you click here. So if we go here for example, like you needs to clarify the selection because it knows there's that both a pad there and a track there. a touch you what one. So if we go over here like this, it it just knows that's a pad.

There's nothing else hidden under there right? So I think we're done all of our tracers, our inner layers, our top. that's our top copper. We've got the ground around the outside, it's exposed. We've got the and then the VCC plane and we've got the inner top layer will call that layer 2 and layer 3 which is in a bottom there all our traces and B bottom copper.

that's our ground plane. So I think we're good to go? I mean you know, turn on the silk and have a look at stuff like that if you're really that keen. front silk. There you go.

and I'm not gonna fuss about any more details. Solder mask, solder mask I Think we're good I think we're good to go I'm gonna generate our goobers now so I'm just gonna ignore that error. Seriously. I Just pretty confident that's not going to be a problem.

I could come a gutter. Also, we could actually run the cleanup. Delete track segments conflicting with different Ness totally redundant vias merge overlapping segments Delete dangling tracks Don't want any dangling tracks? we can do that. But I don't think we had anything because our DRC didn't like unconnected net cells.

Only that one up there. Is that gone Now let's say out of curiosity, curiosity, What? which ly for you Aussies all know what? I'm talking about. least unconnected, not still there. Anyway, there's our 3d view.

So you want to go through your 3d view like go in, check it all out. You know, like simple stuff like silk screen over pads and things like that. And the great thing about this is that it is rendered in watches. see is watching, eat.

Sometimes you might not want silkscreen over your videos or something. If it's a nice important silkscreen, you might go in and shuffle your tracks on a pro board for example. If you're really you know caring about that sort of stuff. But generally I think we're good.

We're good to go the blinking lights. so we're gonna want a drill file. PostScript Exelon drill units like millimeters decimal format generate generate drill files. Yep, a plated through holes non plated through holes.

Separate them at the manufacturers can deal with that. No problem, we want to plot now. Gerber's the output directory Gerber's right, the front copper, the bottom compa. We want the top silk screen, the bottom silk screen we don't need.

There's no silkscreen on the bottom, the front solder mask at the bottom solder mask, the edge cuts we don't have anymore. We don't have like fabrication, drawing info or anything like that, so let's not worry about that. I coordinate format. That's fine.

Use Pro Tell: filename extensions No check zone fills before plotting Exclude pads from silk screens. This were a piece of Angela's force. plot in: Do Not Tent Vias Yeah, we don't want to tempt them. Tenting of course means to put the solder mask over the vias.

You can get to do that at the you can either do it at the via stage. You can edit I Think you can edit your via? Can you do that in Kicad? No. There you go. You can't tenth.

Really, you can't tenth an individual via. Wow, That's a bit of a limitation because sometimes you might want to tent individual ones and not board wide. Is that a thing in Kicad? Really? Wow, that's that's. pretty limited.

Many many times I've wanted I've done boards where I've had to tend some vias and not others. It's a mess of the limitation. If that's legit. you know, a plot sheet.

References on a layers plot footprint values. Good plot. It's good that we can run a DSA and we can generate the jail files from here. Generate our Gerber's because some manufacturers will accept key CAD files.

but no, you want the Gerber's unable to find the next boundary. Bite me. Okay, where are our files? It's not in the Gerber's cuz they're the old ones because it's not for layer outer is the name of my project. Oh I think it's not generating the Gerber's because of this error cannot determine the board outline.

Well, I don't think it'll even generate them. There's no files in there. It doesn't even generate any Gerber's at all any layer with that bug. So I've got to fix that.

Damn, it's a bit limiting. I'll get back to you. Maybe I can disable the check zone feels before. plot in? perhaps.

let's give that a bill. There we go. Yep, Yep. All right.

So I just ignored the zone fields and we're good. Do I have to do like? Is there like a refresh and a refresh refresh project tree? There you go. Tada, There you go. That's our front copper Gerber that looks good.

No workers. there's no dag. he's outside though. it's still got the air generated the frame in there.

It doesn't matter like the manufacturer will get rid of that. It's not a problem, the manufacturer just seemed all that. It's not a problem. So bottom copper that looks good.

Yep, happy with that. Now mask won't open up in the same window. Yep, that looks good and the edge cuts will just be. as the name suggests around the outside front mask front mask looks good.

Hey workers. And last but not least the front silkscreen and always check your Gerber's Oh no. I was going to do the t-shirt don't don't touch my Gerber's because some manufacturers will. I've done a video on that I might try and link it in.

how a manufacturer modified my Gerber's to expand the copper around the pads. It was. It was just ridiculous. And then I had breakouts and my grand plan was broken.

It was just. it's just insane. The manufacturer should not touch your goobers without your express or written permission. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, so those goobers look good, so we're good to go. So we'll package up those goobers and the drill files in a zip file. We'll get this board made now, of course. If this was a professional PCB and a lot of money like as I said, like one of these boards here or something like that, there'd be a lot more involved in checking this than just a cursory glance here.

you know she'll be right. No worries, mate. In this sort of board, like a four layer board like this, is pretty simple. As long as you don't screw up your ground planes and all that sort of stuff and it passes DRC and everything's fine.

You don't care too much about all the not fussing over the little details, you just want something to work electrically then. yeah, no worries. but sometimes you can. Oh, you can take a day or two just just to check everything.

Double check, Triple check everything before you send it out for manufacture. Because like I said, like if you're populating a huge board like that right, you get your board manufactured and then it might be a hundred percent electrical tested at the factory. which it would be right. Everyone does that nowadays used to cost you extra, now it doesn't But if you've got a board like that electrically test and so oh it passes that electrical test it must be okay.

You go put some of those FPGA is a thousands of dollars each right getting one board. I've had boards that cost like tens of thousands of dollars just in parts on the boards so like and if you anything there's something wrong with that board and you put all the load all the things on and you find that I don't know your ground planes are short or one ground plane is not connected because there's something or other like it could be a real expensive mistake now. I'm in Jlc PCB here at the moment don't necessarily recommend them but I don't not so you know is not an endorsement or anything like that. it's just happen to I use at the moment.

So I'll load the Gerber's up. Ok we're uploading our zip file now. Good thing is it can like it when I was a boy not that long ago. Really these online what you see is what you get.

things were just not of our be sent here by email he didn't even uploaded via web. You send it by email to your PCB manufacturer and the whole you know like you wouldn't even get previews back. You just cross your fingers and hope you'd done it right. And here it is detected: Two Layer board.

Oops We had this problem the other day getting the micro supply PCB there's a new one. I've shown a video showing a video to my supporters that's the new micro supply PCB and we had troubles actually uploading this to Jlc. it wouldn't detect the four layers. it had a problem with the way that Altium did power planes.

it would actually invert them of course and it then they software couldn't handle that. and anyway finally got it working. But like it took like a day of effort that was of course a test. I was testing everyone to make sure you're paying attention there when I plotted I forgot the inner top and the inner bottom.

no I didn't it was a test. it's taking a while. Generate those or the Gir but the ones with all the polygons I'm able. Yeah, bugger off.

try that again. see if it likes it I Don't know how it identifies whether or not which order the stack up goes though, so you might want to watch that that's important to you. Detected four Layer board. There we go.

Why does it only show It only shows top and bottom? I Think that's normal? Okay, but that looks good, right? Shows all the silk, they're like the the dimensions. Awright everything's yep. So let's go into the Garba viewer for reference purposes only and may differ. Bottom: It only does the top and the bottom.

it does not have the inner layers are where unselecting. There you go, where unselecting. Got it? Yep, right. that makes sense now.

Okay, but it's only top and bottom. Yeah, if we go into analyze analysis results, it tells us that inner bottom and in a top. Don't know why it's got null there. Maybe because it's it's done nothing with it.

I presume generic Gerber file like it's Gerber file with board outlined generic. No, the others are just generic Gerber files. so it's not showing us the four-layered it. Show us before now.

I've uploaded the old four layer one that I got manufactured and it's once again it's exactly the same. So I think it only displays top and bottom. I Think that Jlc Gerber viewer doesn't let us view the inner layers which is what a pain like. they go to all the effort to do all this Gerber rendering and viewing and everything else yet can't show us the inner layers by looks of it so that's it's.

kind of frustrating. But anyway, let's go through with it. It's detected a four layer board if there's an issue. I'm sure they'll come back to us all right.

Stupid bloody screen capture didn't capture. My final thing here I was just showed you the whole process for ten minutes. didn't capture it. So I got it here.

We go again. Anyway, here we go: Four layer board. We can only get a minimum quantity of five I can't order one which is pretty wasteful if I only want one and it's a one-off like they're gonna make five anyway. it's got to expend all the fuel coming here on the G DHL jet and everything else, so you know, whatever.

Anyway, the interesting thing is is that there's no price difference here. Look legally insane. Price: Thirty two bucks is the tooling fee when I was a boy I Don't even get me started. Nineteen bucks for five boards.

These are large. This is 160 by 230 millimeters. late. guns.

Just crazy. Anyway, you get no price penalty for the other sizes like 0.8 the next nearest sort of like standard size which is half the thickness. There's no price penalty for that and there's no price penalty for any other ones in between. Look, it even changes the weight now does not support 0.6 millimeters.

I Choose another option thank you very much and end point for but point four is a price difference and two is a price difference again. So anyway, one point six. We don't need impedance control and there's no price penalty for red. Either green or red, it's exactly the same price and terrific.

ramose ago, red makes the electrons go faster and there is a difference. Of course, if you get gold plating hassle, which hot air surface-level in with lead? this is lead base I Don't know why they've some people still want. Let I guess your pay do pay a little bit extra. You pay like an extra six bucks or something for lead-free hot air soda.

hot air surface level you can think of as hot-air solder leveling if you want a Ni G which is immersion nickel gold. that's what that stands for. A layer of nickel and then a layer of gold on top. So that's your traditional gold plate.

aboard. you pay. Ah, look at this. Do we look? It's an extra.

It's an age of 30. 15 bucks for the surface finish, extra feet. It's got to be worth. It's got to be worth for the wing curry.

Come on, you're the gold Plating is absolutely worth it. One ounce. you do pay a lot for the two ounce copper you'll pay. There you go.

There's the price difference. We only want one ounce copper. Two ounce copper is 70 microns thickness compared to 35 microns thickness for your one ounce a standard copper. so 2 ounce copy is what you want.

If you're doing real heavy current you know, switching power supplies and stuff like that use double your copper weight. You have your resistance really and it's yeah, it's good stuff. We don't want any gold fingers. We've got like cottage card edge connectors with the 45 chamfer on the edge.

We don't have any of that rubbish. We don't want a panel fly-in probe. You can only get it fully tested. you can't even specify.

Now, don't bother testing. Don't waste your time. Castellated holes know which is a half cut. the Halfmoon holes on the edge of the board.

one different design remarks. that's possibly where you could put in there remarks for I Want the gold plated edges I Want edge plating on there or something like that because Jlc. unlike some of the others that I showed previously in the video further back, this one doesn't have like a checkbox or whatever to select the edge plating. So there you go.

We don't want our laser stencil anything like that, so we're good to go. I'm going to order that and I will get those in a week or so that I'll build them up at my leisure and then I'll be able to do an follow up video doing the H local H field measurements here in the lab, comparing it with the other board and then I'll do a separate video hopefully with some far-field measurements enh feel when they combined. You know I've done that video where they combine like that Ninj at a certain distance. they a certain wavelength distance.

they actually electric and magnetic fields combine to create your electromagnetic radiation which is what you measure in the far field and that's what you get measured at a test house when you go for. EMC compliance testing. you're measuring the far field basically. So I need like an outdoor area test site and Oates test site for that.

or maybe a Emc test house if I can get it or you know I can even do it myself Here in the lab with earth, you know, a couple of rabbit ears, rabbit ear antennas. you know, something like that. Like just budget, but it's not great anyway. I hope you found that video useful.

There's lots of information in there. Hopefully it's a long, laborious process to do this. Um, it would have gone of course. This would have taken me much quicker if I wasn't shooting a video.

It's like a half-hour job or something to do this and boom, it's done kind of thing. And as I said, designing and getting a more professional board manufactured I'd go through a lot more checks than this. but I don't care. I'm pretty comforting.

this board is just going to work. need it to electrically work and that's pretty much it. And I'm not going to look into the stack up of the PCB it doesn't have I'm sure Jlc on their site somewhere tell you what the stack up of the board is, so the various layers in there. and of course, that's going to make a difference for your MC So if you want the least emissions possible, you want to keep the layers.

So if you've got a board like this and you got a layer on the top, then you've got your two inner layers. You want the inner layer as close to the top, ground and the bottom. You know you want it as close to the power plane ground and VCC are effectively the same. The bypass capacitors ensure that, then you want it as close as possible to the plane.

so you want the inner core to be thick and then the outer planes are, then the outer signal layers to be as close as possible and tiny little thin prepregs next to the layer. And they don't give you the option here. There's a controlled impedance option, yes, but that just tells you the standard. We could go look that up, but I'm just going to go for their standard stack up.

I'm not too fast. I Just want to see if there's any sort of dramatic difference between having the layers on the top or having them on the inside in terms of hate-filled and eventually far-field measurements. So that's the plan anyway. So I hope you enjoyed that video.

If you did, please give it a big thumbs up. and as always discussed down below, catch you next time.