KiCAD allows you to create non-plated through holes (NPTH), otherwise known as mechanical holes. There's one wrinkle: when generating drill gerbers, two separate files get generated, one for the plated holes and one for the non-plated holes. There does not seem to be an option in KiCAD to change this.

The solution is simple. Open up the layers in gerbviewer (gerbv), which you are surely already doing. Select only the two drill files as active, then go to File → Export → Excellon drill Merge..., and save the file as your YourName.drl file (overwriting the original.)

To confirm that it has worked, reload the .drl file in gerbviewer, and note your holes have appeared. Remove the NPTH.drl file from the list. Zip everything up, upload to kicad, and confirm your holes are there, et voila!

This is part two of a six-part tutorial. The six parts will cover terminology, circuit design, component selection, board layout, board manufacturing, through-hole and surface-mount soldering, and embedded programming. The nature of this project allows a full lesson plan including all of these components, or any subset of lessons. Every lesson component is completely independent of the others, with the exception that soldering requires boards and components to be purchased, and programming requires at least the microcontrollers (and programmers) to be purchased. This tutorial is designed to teach surface-mount soldering using relatively simple components with large leads.

We will be using a PIC12F615 as the microcontroller. The circuit design and board layout is done using KiCAD. The microcontrollers are programmed with a Pickit (2 or 3), and the code is written in the MPLab X integrated development environment.

After the jump, we will discuss the requirements and the circuit designed to implement these requirements. Please open the definitions / terminology page in a new tab.

This is part one of a six-part tutorial. The six parts will cover terminology, circuit design, component selection, board layout, board manufacturing, through-hole and surface-mount soldering, and embedded programming. This tutorial is designed to teach surface-mount soldering using relatively simple components with relatively large terminals and pins.

The first part focuses entirely on terminology. Keep this open in a new tab as you work.