The PCB production is boring routine work, but if you do not do it properly it can easily turn into a nightmare. The different machines used in production like printers, pick and place machines, ovens, AOI, testers all run different software, different libraries, different component naming concepts. So to prepare from your Cad project all programs to run on these machines is really time consuming. Later on the machine jobs changeovers there are also source of machine operator errors. KiCad as open source project has increadible flexibility to extend your needed functionality. We did reverse engineering of our machines programming and made script which generate all production files with single click from KiCad and I will share with you our experience.

1. FOSDEM, 2024
Bruxelles, February 4th
Electronic boards
production automation with
KiCad

2. $whoami
Tsvetan Usunov === OLIMEX Ltd
www.olimex.com
OLIMEX company is dealing with electronic design and
production more than 30 years.
1000+ originally designed products, most of them OSHW.
All OLIMEX products are manufactured in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

3. Design process
Designing electronic boards
involves creativity,
problem-solving, engaging
your intellect, and provides
incredible satisfaction in
return.

4. Production process
The later mass production
process is characterized by its
boring, repetitive, non-creative,
and monotonous nature.
Nevertheless its very important
as if not done properly it can
easily turn into a nightmarish
experience.

5. Why do we bother to produce?
Because, regrettably, it remains
the most dependable means to
cover our bills, provide for our
families, and recoup something
from our designs and creative
efforts.
With 1000+ products to manage and produce
and no obsolescence it’s real challenge.

6. What could possible go wrong?
Component supply related problems:
●
Differences between component from different lots;
●
Different orientation inside the reel tape for same component from
different vendors;
●
Different component marking;
●
Component packaging variations;
●
Fake components;

7. What could possible go wrong?
Operator Mistakes: Humans are not infallible like machines. Fatigue,
distraction, and varying health conditions can contribute to errors.
Operator performance may decline in the late afternoon due to tiredness and
reduced eyesight, compared to the morning when they are fresh and
energetic.
Operators may experience temporary health problems that could affect their
concentration and performance.
Problems at home or personal issues may distract operators, impacting their
ability to focus on their tasks.
It’s easily to load wrong reel on the machine and to have thousands of PCBs
for repair.

8. To be competitive in production
There are two major problems to be solved:
1. Once the design is complete how fast the machine programs and
setup are to be generated from the CAD files.
2. Once the production is setup, how fast and error free machine are
setup for production (changeovers)

9. The typical production flow
The typical production flow is like this:
Component Kitting → Solder paste Printer → Inspection → SMT Placer →
Inspection → Oven → Inspection → PTH → Inspection → Test

10. The First challenge: Machine initial Programming
The various machines used in production, such as printers, pick-and-place
machines, ovens, AOI, and testers, all operate on different software. This
software is created by various companies, each with its own ideas,
libraries, and component naming concepts. Adding to this complexity, our
ERP system manages over 3000 components in stock, and we also
incorporate KiCad libraries
Preparing programs to run on all these machines is a time-consuming task.
In the past, it used to take us days to prepare programs for complex boards
with hundreds of components and to verify them on the production line.

11. The Second challenge: error free PCB changeovers
Managing the frequent changes in PCB jobs on the
assembly lines, given the multitude of products,
poses a significant challenge.
Loading tens of feeders without errors becomes a
challenging task as human errors are inevitable.
Finding ways to minimize operator errors is essential.

12. Continual improvement of the process
With over 30 years of experience in electronic
production, we are consistently striving to enhance
our processes to prevent avoidable mistakes and to
streamline the programming of various machines,
making it a more straightforward and predictable
process.

13. The tools
The sole solution we discovered involves computer
assistance and control, where humans interact with
machines at every step.
We have implemented KiCad scripts as a vital part of our
process, effectively addressing both challenges of faster
machine programming and error-free changeovers.

14. KiCad
KiCad provides complete openness, allowing us access
to every parameter of the PCB, each component and its
properties, and every PCB element to extract the
necessary information.
While attempting to achieve similar results with Eagle
legacy boards using ULP scripts, we encountered some
success, but the freedom and flexibility are not
comparable.

15. The machines reverse engineering
In our production, we utilize machines from various
vendors, including Samsung, Sony, Omron, Autotech,
MPM, and ETA. To automatically generate programs for
these machines, we had to reverse engineering their file
formats.
While this is still a work in progress, significant progress
have been made and I will demonstrate with the next
slides.

16. It all starts from the CAD Olimex
plugin

17. Olimex production export
PCB orientation
What info to use
What to export

18. Export Result Files

19. Import JSON in our ERP
match
Data tabs

20. Preview

21. Export Machine code
Machine
dropdown
menu

22. The result
Native Samsung
program file ready to
be loaded to the
machine

23. Computer assisted Changeover
Two
machines
working inline

24. The recap
The productivity increase from CAD to Machine
program by using these scripts is multiply times.
Additional benefit is to not use the machine time for
programming.
With the changeovers there is no remarkable speed up,
but significant reduction of the errors due to operator
mistakes.

25. Questions?
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