With that said, I've done my share of etching and never care to do it again.
I'll never do etching again.... its not just the etching, the drilling, cutting, etc ughhh.
My impression was always that it would be done by making the parts layout in a PCB software like DipTrace, and then exporting that to something like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape to draw the traces manually, and then importing that back into the PCB software to create the gerbers. If there’s a native way to do that in DipTrace, or some other software that’s designed for that, I’d be very interested.This is a bit of a high jacking comment but - what program do people use for layouts to make those smooth swoopy traces? I just started messing around in DIYLC and I imagine its an option but I haven't found it yet.
Fair enough. I've only used DIYLC and you can definitely make layouts in that easily. Next time I load it up I will see about curved traces. I am not nearly advanced enough to make gerbers or whatever. Just getting my toes wet now. Technically I should probably learn a lot of other stuff first but some of what I find to be boring is really hard to make stick.My impression was always that it would be done by making the parts layout in a PCB software like DipTrace, and then exporting that to something like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape to draw the traces manually, and then importing that back into the PCB software to create the gerbers. If there’s a native way to do that in DipTrace, or some other software that’s designed for that, I’d be very interested.
Cool idea. Dunno why I never thought of that before.Technically you could load that image into a photo editor like Photoshop and remove everything from the image except for the traces, convert to black and white, then load that image into DipTrace (verifying that the scaling is correct) and set it to the Signal layer. Draw the board outline around it, then add pads everywhere they need to be, then export Gerbers... No need to even bother with drawing traces.
I prefer the look of those (especially the left) but I guess in general I was just referring to the OPs image with the curved corners instead of a 45 or 90 degree. I found out I actually can add curved traces in DIYLC but it's a teeny bit tedious.. Not to mention I just wanted to know for superficial reasons - I think it looks neat. But those you posted are much cooler! I assume they are hand drawn? Love that stuff!You mean traces like this? Left or right?
View attachment 13566