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Feature request: dedicated slot tool

Description

Based on my proffessional point of view (IPC CID qualified PCB designer) there is missing @ current version of KiCad the dedicated tool to draw PTH or NPTH slots / slot holes to perform the electric distances (creepage / clearance) when there is no enough space on PCB to ensure demanded distance between two different pottential copper traces / areas.

Of course there is a basic tool to draw graphical lines. You can set the size for that lines. You can draw it on a separate layer and call it slots PTH or slots NPTH, but please note in that case this is an gerber (not an Excelon .drl or .rou file) preferred by the PCB suppliers. Another issue is that such "slots" are not placed into FAB drawings / drill maps. So this is easy to overlook that slots during PCB fabrication.

If you put that slot lines onto Edge_cuts (outline) layer, then you will see that "slots" on both of NPTH and PTH drill maps, which will leads to confucions or mistakes during PCB fabrication.

Just look how it looks by PCB supplier's when they got the gerbers from their customers:

image

image

Generally this is harder to produce manufacturing data (drilling sets) - additional work by PCB fabricators must be done.

Another weak points it that for such "slots" the PCB fabricators must manually add the solder mask top and bottom openings to avoid solder mask flow into that slots. About 0.2 mm distance between the slot edge and solder mask should be kept.

Please consider to introduce the tool for adding air slots to ensure:

  • possibility to define as PTH or NPTH slots
  • automatical adding slot unmask for both solder mask top and bottom layers
  • automatical adding that slots into PTH or NPTH drill maps
  • possibility to generate as Excelon into .drl / .rou output files.

KiCad Version

Application: KiCad (64-bit)

Version: (6.0.9), release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.1

Platform: Windows 11 (build 22000), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers)
	Boost: 1.79.0
	OCC: 7.6.0
	Curl: 7.83.1-DEV
	ngspice: 37
	Compiler: Visual C++ 1929 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
	KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
	KICAD_SPICE=ON