Full disclosure: I was contacted by a JLCPCB rep offering to do a few boards for me in exchange for a review. I should further note though that I have done business with them as a normal paying customer in the past.
KICADPCB file is a KiCad PCB Design Document.KiCad is an EDA software suite for the creation of professional schematics and printed circuit boards up to 16 layers.KiCad runs on Windows, Linux and Apple OS X and is released under the open-source GNU GPL v2 free of charge. There are two big files you can download. The first one is KiCad.dmg and the second one is KiCad-extras.dmg. The first file contains KiCad itself, documentation, the schematic symbols, and some templates, but it doesn’t contain any footprints. So you’ll be getting the footprints from the Kicad GitHub. The KiCad footprint libraries are the individual.pretty directories. Each.pretty directory contains multiple.kicadmod footprint files. These footprints are best used in combination with the official symbol libs and 3d model libs.
I used JLCPCB for my current board version for my Water Alert project. I also did a slightly updated board version of my Attiny Micro board, had them do a few additional boards for my Atmega328P Target, and for kicks some Sega Gensis/Megadrive cartridge PCBs from a design I found here.
The ordering process was easy. I really like that they show you images of the uploaded gerber files and in this instance it pointed out an issue. For my Atmega328P Target board, I noticed that a portion of the silkscreen was distorted. Under KiCad everything looked fine. I looked up their instructions for exporting gerbers in KiCad and saw that the include extended attributes option was checked in their screenshots. I went back in KiCad and did that and resubmitted them. The silkscreen issue went away.
Pcb Kicad Manufacturers
The PCBs arrived quickly via DHL for a total turnaround time of about a week (I normally use the least expensive shipping option that usually takes a few weeks, but since it was on them chose the fast option.) They arrived in vacuum sealed packaging (usually they arrive neatly stacked in the package, but it's not really a big deal.)
Overall the PCBs came out quite good. Alignment was good. The edges of the boards were nicely routed. Silkscreen text is nice and sharp (with the exception of R4 and R5 labels on my Water Alert board, although to be fair the text is a bit small.) Order numbers were printed on the boards. One thing that I'm really impressed is that JLCPCB is able to get soldermask between the pads of fine-pitch surface mount component footprints as shown on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive cartridge PCB (note that although I didn't specify gold fingers on the edge connector, it should be specified if you're doing something more than testing/prototyping/just tinkering.)
My recommendations to JLCPCB:
Give us the option to change the PCB quantity before the order is submitted. JLCPCB changed their default quantity from 10 to 5 and I didn't notice until I uploaded everything. Since one the boards had to be manually approved it would have been a bit of a wait if I just deleted the order and started over again.
Retain promotion offers when an order is cancelled. On a previous order, a free shipping promotion was offered. There was an issue with a board I uploaded so the order was cancelled. When I re-uploaded with the issue corrected the free shipping promotion didn't re-appear.
In summary, I'll give them a thumbs up. I'd also like to thank them for offering to spin a few PCB designs at no cost in exchange for a review. I currently don't have a regular stream of income at this time so saving anywhere I can helps greatly!
https://jlcpcb.com/
1 extension(s) and 0 alias(es) in our database
Below, you can find answers to the following questions:
- What is the .kicad_pcb file?
- Which program can create the .kicad_pcb file?
- Where can you find a description of the .kicad_pcb format?
- What can convert .kicad_pcb files to a different format?
- Which MIME-type is associated with the .kicad_pcb extension?
KiCad PCB Design Document
Kicad 5 Tutorial
Other types of files may also use the .kicad_pcb file extension. If you have helpful information about .kicad_pcb extension, write to us!
Kicad Pcb Design Software
Can't open a .kicad_pcb file?
If you want to open a .kicad_pcb file on your computer, you just need to have the appropriate program installed. If the .kicad_pcb association isn't set correctly, you may receive the following error message:
Windows can't open this file:
File: example.kicad_pcb
To open this file, Windows needs to know what program you want to use to open it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list of programs that are installed on your computer.
To change file associations:
- Right-click a file with the extension whose association you want to change, and then click Open With.
- In the Open With dialog box, click the program whith which you want the file to open, or click Browse to locate the program that you want.
- Select the Always use the selected program to open this kind of file check box.
Supported operating systems
Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X, iOS, Android