This 4K render took me a minute. (4MB huge image)

[technix]

Last time I showed you a 1-minute raytracing render cropped down. This time it is a 10-minute 4K render of another PCB in KiCad. The image file is cropped to remove some of the excessive background, but no PCB pixel is removed. It is a 4MB 2282×1862 pixel PNG file that I had to host on my blog server. Shown below is a scaled down version, but you can get the original by clicking on the image. The file is big, you have been warned.


Full size (4MB)

[JPortici]

dayum. wish diptrace had a better 3d render (and other stuff)

[mariush]

I'm curious about some things...

Is the silkscreen supposed to go over vias and over pads, for example see bottom right, the circle for the battery or speaker or whatever's supposed to go there?
Same for the diode on the left, to the left of IOREF text ... is the silkscreen supposed to be drawn over vias?   
There's also silkscreen over the big hole on bottom left, silkscreen from the footprint of that connector (with three slot holes)

Did you make that intentional, to have the pads for those diodes so big compared to their body (the two to the left of IOREF)

What's the deal with the crosshatch on the pin headers? Is it rendering error or intentional?

Don't see why such shadows should show up if the light is supposed to be from one direction only ... though it's really weird ... at the top, you have shadow as if the light comes from above and top of board, but then you have on the bottom left shadow on the capacitors as if light comes from top left  ... and then the bottom header, you have shadow as if the light shines from bottom of pcb...

Not really so excited about this render... seems like to much weird stuff to me

[ixfd64]

As a side note, I've heard Nvidia's new GeForce 20 series is really good at ray tracing.

[Halcyon]

Question: How does your design differ from an Arduino? I see so many similarities and even some design elements which appear to be direct copies.

[technix]

Question: How does your design differ from an Arduino? I see so many similarities and even some design elements which appear to be direct copies.

This board is centered around the LPC2103 as the main chip, otherwise it is intended to be directly compatible with Arduino Zero.

As a side note, I've heard Nvidia's new GeForce 20 series is really good at ray tracing.

I wish I can afford that.

Is the silkscreen supposed to go over vias and over pads, for example see bottom right, the circle for the battery or speaker or whatever's supposed to go there?
Same for the diode on the left, to the left of IOREF text ... is the silkscreen supposed to be drawn over vias?   
There's also silkscreen over the big hole on bottom left, silkscreen from the footprint of that connector (with three slot holes)

The grey stuff is solder paste...

Did you make that intentional, to have the pads for those diodes so big compared to their body (the two to the left of IOREF)

Yes, for the ease of hand soldering.

What's the deal with the crosshatch on the pin headers? Is it rendering error or intentional?

Lighting effects. See below for more.

Don't see why such shadows should show up if the light is supposed to be from one direction only ... though it's really weird ... at the top, you have shadow as if the light comes from above and top of board, but then you have on the bottom left shadow on the capacitors as if light comes from top left  ... and then the bottom header, you have shadow as if the light shines from bottom of pcb...

It is KiCad's lighting setup. They used multiple light sources placed at the corners of the scene, hence the cross shadows.

[EEVblog]

Looks photosho.... oh 

[technix]

Looks photosho.... oh 

Heck I burned 10 minutes of CPU in KiCad to raytrace render this on a 4K monitor. Will send you one if you are interested though.

[VK3DRB]

Hope you don't mind critiquing this design and are not offended in any way.

Nice picture, and a PCB should be artwork. I love the QFIC at 45 degrees. Few engineers have any understanding of why 45 degrees for a QFIC is a good thing. An Australian car called the VE Commodore has its instrument cluster CPU QFIC at 45 degrees because I had the layout technician put it in that way. It took some doing to convince the powers that be that 45 degrees was the way to go. The manufacturer previously had big yield problems with dry joints on pins with the earlier VZ Commodore instrument cluster. Problem cured with the 45 degree placement, irrespective if the paste was a bit stale. 

You pin one markers are not so good, IMO. The extended line can be ambiguous if you have a few IC's in the same area or moreover if your PCB manufacturer cannot print the line fine enough. However, the triangle you used for the connector though is very good, but a solidly filled in one is better.

Most engineers don't use a triangle for pin one because either they are lazy, too busy, don't care about those with eyesight problems, have little or no experience as an electronics technician, are caught in a legacy footprint library, or simply have not thought about it. Some engineers are simply stuck in their old ways and won't change.

A triangle distinguishes it from a via, fly vomit, a spec of dirt and a full stop. A triangle points to the pin one of the component without any ambiguity to nearby components. A triangle is easily identifiable when it is small, even to those of us with presbyopia. Triangles allow an inspector to more easily to distinguish solder balls, which otherwise may be missed when there are pin one circles of all different sizes.

[langwadt]

I'm curious about some things...

Is the silkscreen supposed to go over vias and over pads, for example see bottom right, the circle for the battery or speaker or whatever's supposed to go there?
Same for the diode on the left, to the left of IOREF text ... is the silkscreen supposed to be drawn over vias?   
There's also silkscreen over the big hole on bottom left, silkscreen from the footprint of that connector (with three slot holes)

you don't want silkscreen on pads it makes it hard to solder, but there is an option in the gerber generation (and some manufacturers do it automatically) to subtract soldermask openings from the silkscreen

[Rerouter]

 Just to bring back some Nostalgia VK3DRB, Your team programmer made some weird choices on that one.

And to the OP, Nice render, Bit insane on the number of stitching Vias, you only need 1/20th of max wavelength for your spacing.

[technix]

I wonder if the board would suffer from my bazillions of stitched ground vias...

[Rerouter]

The only negative you may find is higher costing at large scale manufacturing, as once you get to 4-5 digits of units they will charge you on the time, e.g. how many drill holes,

[technix]

You pin one markers are not so good, IMO. The extended line can be ambiguous if you have a few IC's in the same area or moreover if your PCB manufacturer cannot print the line fine enough. However, the triangle you used for the connector though is very good, but a solidly filled in one is better.

I just used whatever comes default in KiCad...

I'm curious about some things...

Is the silkscreen supposed to go over vias and over pads, for example see bottom right, the circle for the battery or speaker or whatever's supposed to go there?
Same for the diode on the left, to the left of IOREF text ... is the silkscreen supposed to be drawn over vias?   
There's also silkscreen over the big hole on bottom left, silkscreen from the footprint of that connector (with three slot holes)

you don't want silkscreen on pads it makes it hard to solder, but there is an option in the gerber generation (and some manufacturers do it automatically) to subtract soldermask openings from the silkscreen

That is an option for KiCad's gerber output.

Just to bring back some Nostalgia VK3DRB, Your team programmer made some weird choices on that one.

And to the OP, Nice render, Bit insane on the number of stitching Vias, you only need 1/20th of max wavelength for your spacing.

What was wrong on the board? As of the vias, I was suffering from discontinuous ground fill.