Mastodawn

I've got a new #KiCad plugin out in the KiCad plugin manager:

KiCoil generates "twisted" planar inductors. You can make it do one- or two-layer spiral inductors, toroid inductors, and many intermediate, hybrid variants in between spiral and toroid inductors.

These hybrid types have wider traces than a single-layer spiral, and have better high-frequency behavior (parasitic capacitance and self-resonant frequency) compared to two-layer spiral inductors. And they look really pretty!

#electronics

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Michael Ossmann Dec 10

@jaseg Have you given any thought to how this could be adapted to use more PCB layers? I’m interested in making a PCB loop antenna that I think would benefit from maximizing the number of turns by using more layers.

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jaseg

@mossmann I'm planning to add support for more layers at some point. It's pretty simple, you would just alternate clockwise and counter-clockwise winding orders. You'd need to rotate each layer pair by a bit so the vias don't collide unless you're really posh and pay for blind or buried vias anyway. Right now, you could just overlay two of the footprints this tool generates at an angle and connect them in series as a decent workaround.