Ive seen a few others ask, but I dont have Eagle or use it for PCB design as I am using another tool. Is it possible to upload DXF drawings such that they can be imported into any tool in order to design custom capes? For example, I have an Au+ and an FT board and need to add a MIPI/HDMI cape on top. Currently, I have the interface soldered to the prototype cape, but I need something a little easier to reproduce. DXF would be amazing.
I’m not exactly sure if this is what you had in mind but here’s a DXF export from an empty board. Let me know if this works or if something is off. I’ve never used DXF files.
alchitry_element.zip (5.5 KB)
The slightly janky thing that I am trying, is designing a PCB where I set up 0.1" pitch header blocks positioned to match the chunks of the Alchitry BR cape which I am using pins from. The BR breakouts are just standard 0.1" pitch connectors, with a 0.1" gap between the two banks, so that’s pretty easy to eyeball the positioning in KiCad by using the appropriate measuring interfaces. This also avoided having to figure out how to handle those weird custom cape connectors that the Alchitry boards use. It’s a little bulkier than doing it as a regular cape, but it will still fit where it needs to go for prototyping.
Those PCBs are just finishing up production, so I’ll know in a couple of days if this works out!
As I posted elsewhere here, I did get the PCBs in and was able to get them working in time for my demo yesterday, and my scheme to use the Alchitry Br cape, along with 0.1" headers properly placed on the PCB, worked perfectly. It would be a little tighter and more elegant to use the custom stacking cape connectors instead, but this was much easier and worked with straight off-the-shelf techniques. It’s easy to lay out banks of 0.1" holes on a PCB, properly spaced, and solder some headers on.