Laser Cutting PCB Solder Paste Stencil
Nikki.Smith
This free extension for Inkscape makes it easy to create a solder paste stencil for soldering SMT/SMD components to a PCB. Commercial PCB stencils are laser cut from steel, but for prototypes it is quicker and cheaper to cut your own stencil on a hobbyist-grade laser. I've found vellum paper (200gsm) works well with solder paste, cuts cleanly, very cheap, can be cleaned with isopropanol (isopropyl) and reused to paste up to 10 PCBs. This extension ONLY works if your PCB was designed with the open-source KiCad EDA, as it relies on the export SVG feature.
Comment here...
Export to LaserGRBL for laser cutting
Nikki.Smith
This free extension for Inkscape speeds up preparation of laser cutting jobs by exporting Gcode to LaserGRBL (included with most laser cutters). Pick your model of laser and material / thickness from pulldown lists, then export a complex job directly into LaserGRBL with one click. Use different coloured lines for each part of a job. eg, red lines to engrave in a single pass at 3000 mm/min @ 80% power, but blue lines cut in 3 passes at 300 mm/min @ 90% power. The emphasis is on it being very easy to use, with the bare minimum of settings. v1.21 17/Dec/2024
Comment here...
Dynamic GUI example extensions with GTK
Nikki.Smith
For extension developers. Most extensions to Inkscape use an .inx file that describes a static user interface, then a Python script is run one time when the user clicks "Apply". To create a dynamic UI (that changes as the user clicks buttons, selects from dropdown menus, etc) you can build it in GTK using a Python script that runs immediately. Requires Inkscape v1.1 or newer. These short examples demonstrate a handful of functions in GTK+ 3. Now includes an example extension that uses a .glade XML file to create the UI with Gtk.Builder(). Also many small changes that result in much higher pylint code scores.
Comment here...
Localization / translation example extension
Nikki.Smith
For extension developers. This minimal extension pulls together some helpful documentation about adding localization to an extension, including where the translation files go and what gettext commands to use on both Windows and Linux. Now includes localized text in the Python script. Also many small changes that result in a much higher pylint code score.
Comment here...