As the title implies, I am seeking help with utilizing KiCad for designs on the solder mask, silk screen, and exposed copper, etc.
I know how to make vectors in Inkscape and import them as footprints and all that, but I would like to make more intriguing designs on the panels that I am making like seen on a lot of eurorack modules, as well as Sam’s very own LMNC Panels.
I did make a neat silkscreen tonight that I figured I would share.
It’s an older picture of Sam with a bent Speak and Spell!
Any help is greatly appreciated as usual!
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Search YouTube for “pcb art” and “badge life” for various tutorials & timelapses (not using kicad so cannot recommend a specific one).
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Do you have a particular question? I’ve only recently started doing PCB panels so I’m still learning, but I did just do one with some exposed copper and PCB substrate.
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Exactly like the techniques you have used on your board is what I am looking to do!
Removing all soldermask in areas, exposing copper, adding plated areas etc.
that looks good man! Did you need to know how do do specific things, or just want some inspiration?
Whenever i want to smoosh something into a 1 bit color image, i use this online converter that works pretty well. Works best with smaller images, since larger images, the dithering may produce undesirable effects.
Here is the example with my icon:
The thing to know is that the solder mask layer is basically a negative. Anything you put on there means there won’t be a solder mask in that place. Then you just have to make sure there’s actually a copper layer under it.
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Yeah, I am a complete novice with KiCad… lol
I only know how to do what I currently know how to do because of your Thread and Notes and Volts’ video about making a panel lolol.
Anything past that, I know nothing in kicad. Lolol
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the day after I post this… Threetom releases a KiCAD Silkscreen/Mask/Exposed Copper guide. lol
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That’s a really good tutorial! Some weeks ago I found this:
And I was wondering how they did the lights shining through! Now I know!
Does this work for every pcb factory? do they all use the same (FR4) material?
It’s what JLCPCB uses and is the default for PCBWay. OSH Park uses it too, though their only solder mask color is purple (or clear, but with a black FR4 substrate). Don’t know about anyone else.
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If you want to be extra fancy, you can get “reverse mount” SMD LEDs, and solder them on the back of the front-panel PCB, see e.g. these LEDs from Kingbright (Mouser’s search filter calls them “bottom view”, not sure about Digikey).
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Hi Fredrik, just keep in mind that this will only work well for small (~1mm) indicator lights. The emission cone of the LED needs to overlap the extent of the window. So, in most cases, some distance between the LED helps as the cone grows larger the further you move away from the LED according to its opening angle 
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So I did a little bit thicker mask, just in threshold level.
I am having trouble affixing the Back Copper tho, it keeps showing up facing forward and when i set it to Back in Properties it switches its Layer to Front Cu and shows up red :\
Idk wtf that’s all about lol.
(This is just a test, mounting hole pads and such are not there on this one)
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Have you tried pressing the F key to flip it to the back instead?
You can also duplicate the footprint file, then open that in a text editor and replace F.Silk by B.Silk or F.Cu by B.Cu
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I will try this!
Also… for some reason… this one makes KiCAD crash on my laptop…
lol… its an older version of KOSMO.
Hehe, maybe start with something simple and them improve from there on 
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I think i’m getting the hang of this…
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Hot dang!
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