HackSpace_-_October_2019

TUTORIAL

Make artistic KiCad PCBs with Inkscape

here are some amazing art PCB

projects out in the world, and

approaches to making non-standard

shaped PCBs have varied and

often been complex. Svg2shenzen

is an Inkscape extension that allows

Inkscape to draw directly on KiCad equivalent layers

and export these from Inkscape as KiCad projects.

These projects can either be sent directly to

manufacture, or can be tweaked and added to using

the usual KiCad workflow. This enables PCBs to be

created that couldn’t be made using KiCad alone.

T

Use svg2shenzhen to give your circuits a little more style

Make artistic KiCad

PCBs with Inkscape

Figure 1

The completed PCBs,

made using a combination

of Inkscape, svg2shenzen,

and KiCad

Jo Hinchliffe

@concreted0g

Jo is a contributor

to the Libre Space

Foundation, and is

passionate about all

things DIY space. He

loves designing and

scratch-building both

model and high-power

rockets, and releases

the designs and

components as open

source. He also has

a shed full of lathes,

milling machines, and

CNC kit!

After installing

libraries, it’s a good

idea to close and

restart the

Arduino IDE.

QUICK TIP

To get started, we need to navigate to the amazing

badgeek’s GitHub repository for svg2shenzhen here

• hsmag.cc/BQpUAJ. Click the green ‘Clone or
  download’ button in the upper right-hand corner, and
  then select ‘Download ZIP’. Once it’s downloaded,
  open Inkscape and double-check where your user
  extensions are installed. Do this by clicking Edit >
  Preferences > System and then note the location of
  ‘User extensions’ (Figure 2).
  Close Inkscape and then unzip the downloaded
  svg2shenzhen zip file to the location you found
  in the previous step. When you reopen Inkscape,