KiCad + FreeCAD Class 3 Q&A

Class 3

When setting the origins, how close is “close enough”? The center of my board, mathematically is 1.4375 inches by 0.8 inches. However, the closest I could get seemed to be 1.4350 (or 1.4400) inches by 0.8 inches. (ubuntourist)

Set your Grid Size to 25 mil instead of 50 mil
OR
Block Select All (make sure to enable all layers first) > Secondary click > Move Exactly (hotkey ctrl + M) , set X coordinate to -0.0375 > OK
This’ll move the board to X=1.4 and Y = 0.8

Racing to finish… Still 15 minutes left in the video. I see your Oshpark display of your part is much more detailed than mine… I mean, the detail that I see in the files that I’ve zipped up and submitted gets lost in translation… (ubuntourist)

Well, WYSIWYG,
Ah, gotcha. I know what that is. I ran into this error last week, and have a temporary fix until OSHpark fixes it. If your edge cuts layer line thickness is less than 4 mil, OSHpark render fails. If the line thickness is 4 mil or more, it works.
Make sure your Board Edge Cuts layer graphics thickness is at least 4 mil or more.
Go to EDIT > Edit Text and Graphics Properties, (see image below)

I am getting an error while creating the step file. It says “Unable to create STEP file. Check that the board has a valid outline and models.”......... I have already drawn it three times...any tips to avoid the error in the future or any idea how I can debug the current edge cut of the board?

Error is what it says - the board outline has a discontinuity. Sometimes, if the discontinuity is large enough, KiCad will complain when you try 3D view.
If discontinuity is very minute, 3D will work, but STEP will fail
Fix your Edge Cuts layer graphics to fix this. There should not be any discontinuities in the outline. This usually occurs if you have set a very fine grid size (such as 1 mil instead of 10 mil), and the end points of two consecutive elements do not line up and are not coincident.

In my KiCAD installation, my right-side toolbar doesn’t show all the functionalities like in the video. How can I adjust the toolbars. I faced this problem both in Eschema and PcbNew. I searched online but didn’t find anything.(Aditya)

Also, when we do the pcb page setup, how do you decide which layers you need or don’t need?(Aditya)

.POS files (FILE > Fabrication Output > Footprint Position Files
Top/Bot Adhes (adhesive) - but not always necessary (most board houses auto-generate this from the other layers)
Top/Bot Fab (fabricate) layers can be helpful too, in addition to 3D images in various orientations for visualisation

This is a bit off the class scope. I came across the PCB Motors on Hackaday’s blog last year. They were made by Carl Bujega. I noticed on his youtube channel that he uses Altium to not just design PCB motors, but also flexible PCBs. I wanted to know if something similar to that is possible to replicate on KiCAD.

Rigid or Flex PCB is not a problem at all - as far as KiCad is concerned, the only difference is in the board thickness, everything else stays the same.
But you may need extra plugin’s to design helical coils and such for the motor “windings”. Just look for appropriate plugins as needed.