Help me make a Drill Template for my own PCB

yazooligan

yazooligan

Well-known member
Hi, folks. I've got my first run of PCB's fabricated for a new pedal that will go in 125B enclosures. I want to submit a drill template for a quote from Obscura Mfg to have the enclosures drilled, painted and printed. But I'm totally lost on how to make one; let alone one that adheres to their template. I have all the kiCad and Gerber files from my PCB designer but I'm not sure what to do next.

Anyone else been through this before? Thanks!
 
It's been a while since I did it this way (Mammoth / PPP days) but basically you download their template PDF and place all of your artwork and drill marks on that using your editor of choice. (Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Inkscape, etc)

They want the X/Y coordinate for each hole (usually measured in mm from the center), as well as the radius.

125B template, for example:

Artwork usually needed to be in vector format, but according to the template Obscura can work with raster images +300dpi, so that makes it a bit easier.

In some cases it might be easier to submit two separate templates, one for drilling and one for artwork. This varies depending on who you're working with.
 
Thanks, Robert!

Sadly the issue I'm having is I have no idea how to decipher where those drill holes should go, or how to measure them down to the millimeter. At this point I'm considering building one of the boards, spreading some play-doh on the face of an enclosure, and then pressing the pots down into the play-doh to make initial marks...
 
Can you show me a picture of your PCB layout? It doesn't have to include traces, values, part numbers, etc.
 
If you have 3D models attached to your PCB, export it as a .step file and import to your CAD program of choice. From there it's trivial to create a drill plan.

If you don't have 3D models attached, then your best bet is exporting it as a vector image into your vector software of choice and getting measurements that way.
 
What I do is simply bring the blank fold lines into KiCAD as a footprint, then made drill holes for different sizes as footprints (I have a footprint called 7mm Pot Drill), with the marker design drawn in KiCAD.

All of these drawings go into some kind of aux layer like User.4

Place these footprints into my PCB editor

I then Plot > PDF

Uncheck all layers but User.4

Check “Mirrored Plot”

Export.

Boom, drill template without needing to measure a single thing
 
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