<-- home

fabrication files for PCB:ng

March 14, 2017

PCB.ng is a great new prototype manufacturing house that are working hard to offer a full “no touch” ordering system.

While they provide a lot of support for Kicad users, I could not find good info on how to generate BOMs and component position files that were compatible with their platform.

These are the steps that ended up working for me.

  1. In the schematic, add new fields for each part in your design:

    • MPN: The Manufacturer Part Number
    • DISTPN: The Distributor Part Number
    • Config: If the part is not to be populated, set this value to DNF
    • MFR, DIST: (Optional) The manufacturer and the distributor
    • MPN2, MPN3, DISTPN2, DISTPN3: For alternate part numbers or distributors

  2. Generate the BOM. We use KiBoM, which can be tuned to generate your BOM in many different ways.

  3. Edit bom.ini (which is created in step 2) and add References at the end of the GROUPS_FIELDS. This ensures that the components are not grouped, or otherwise PCB.ng will fail to map components to positions in the position file.

  4. Regenerate BOM. Check that parts are not grouped.

  5. Remove footer summary from the csv file and upload to PCB:ng

  6. Map the Identifier (->References), Manufacturer Part Number (->MPN) and Digikey-SKU (->DISTPN) fields.

  7. Generate Position File from Kicad/Pcbnew (File -> Fabrication Outputs) -> Footprint Position) with one file per board. Make sure you remove the INSERT attribute on DNF components or else they will appear in your Position File.

    Note: Make sure you have not moved your origin point for gerbers and positioning away from the default (0,0) or else your parts will be floating in space. In Kicad, this can be moved via the “Bullseye-on-axis” tool on the right tool menu (tooltip: “Place the origin point…”).

  8. Upload that file as a Pick and Place file and confirm that the placement information is all correct in the Placement tab. All parts should appear as Placed but unconfirmed. If some show as not placed, check that the INSERT attribute was set on that footprint.

And that’s all.

Thanks to the inimitable Kyle Manna for figuring out most of this before I did.