Multi-design panels without the need for programming

[yaqwsx]

Hello guys,
a few weeks ago I had a chat with @dzarda. He came up with an interesting idea on how to use KiKit to build arbitrarily shaped, possibly multi-design, in KiKit without a need to write any code. Below you can find his proposal. Do you find it useful? Would you be interested in having such a feature? Is there something you would change?

We could add a feature to add panel templates into KiKit. Panel template is a KiCAD board that:

• has all the panel features except boards. Basically, you draw rails, backbones, wire tracks, holes, fiducials manually. You can also put any technical drawings next to the panel.
• you also draw board slots. That is a polyline defining a partition line for a board to be inserted. There is also a footprint annotation giving a name to the board slot. For each board slot, there is also a footprint specifying board origin.
• in your board files you can also place an annotation symbol that defines board origin.
• When you run KiKit you basically specify something like:

kikit panelize template panelTemplate.kicad_pcb \
    --slot A=board1.kicad_pcb --source 'auto' --tabs: 'annotation' \
    --slot B=board2.kicad_pcb --source 'annotation; ref: B3' --tabs 'fixed; hcount: 3; vcount: 1' \
    --slot C=board3.kicad_pcb --preset test3.json
    panel.kicad_pcb

The semantics of the command above is that the slots with names A, B, C will be populated from files board{n}.kicad_pcb and the tabs will be added according to a strategy just like in the current CLI. There are just no options

In this way, you can have whatever feature you wish in your panel. You just don't have to care about the tabs (that are laborious to work) - KiKit will make them for you. You can also quickly update the panel once you make a new revision of the source board. The same procedure could be also used for an arbitrary layout of single-board panels.

You might wonder why we need a special symbol for the board origin and why we cannot use aux origin. The reason is twofold:

• multi-board designs,
• we don't need just position but also rotation for the origin (both in source and destination)

Happy to hear your feedback!

[RasmusB]

I think that is an excellent idea! That would seriously make it a lot easier to use.

Maybe it would be possible to use the board origin symbols to directly define what board file to insert?

[pkurucz]

Sounds good to me! Just wanted to ask, will the end design make a bom/pnp data that doesn't have collisions when the same reference designator (i.e. U1) is used on different designs when inserted into the panel? Or will we have to manage the reference designator assignments in eash of the sub boards to make sure there isn't a collision?

[yaqwsx]

The question about BOM is actually a good one. We need to make research between the fab houses. I don't think it is possible to have different components for the same designator with the cheap manufacturers (e.g., JLC PCB). But I guess with the more sophisticated ones it could be actually possible if we provide a drawing.

Do people have experience with this?

[jeffmakes]

This would be an amazing feature. I'm currently researching how to make a multi-design panel with the Python API and it's certainly a formidable challenge.

As for placement data / BoM - generally assembly houses don't want panel-level stepped placement data. You just give them placement data for a single PCB and they step it themselves. They always do a lot of checking and processing of placement data, since generally the quality of the data is quite poor (especially the classic issue of component rotation information).

[MG-Programmer]

Hello guys,
is there any progress with this feature?
I'm looking forward to see it in action.
Alternativley I would write a python script to panelize a multi design panel by myself. The problem is that I didn't find any docs or examples about that.

[yaqwsx]

This feature is on a roadmap for this year; however, there wasn't much interest in it from sponsors of this project, so it wasn't prioritized.

At the moment, there aren't any public examples of panelization via scripting, but there is

• listing of API functions https://github.com/yaqwsx/KiKit/blob/master/doc/panelization.md
• the CLI implementation is a good starting point containing practically everything (https://github.com/yaqwsx/KiKit/blob/master/kikit/panelize_ui.py#L230)
• there is an issue with know API inconveniences Make KiKit more scripting friendly #283

[maxanier]

The problem is that I didn't find any docs or examples about that.
I have just written a script derived from panelize_ui, that panelizes two different designs. Maybe it is helpful to you:
https://gist.github.com/maxanier/87a9e73fbd655bf040c3cead2ff43e65