PCBA
More complex PCBs often require hundreds of small surface mount components. It can be a pain to order these individually, and hand-solder SMT components that are often only a few millimeters in area.
Luckily, most board houses offer in-house assembly for PCBs. JLCPCB, our preferred manufacturer, offers this capability. Easily enough, all you need to provide is a component placement list and bill of materials, usually as two Excel files.
Sample BOM
A bill of materials is a file that specifies each component’s reference designator, value, footprint, quantity, and part number (if applicable). Alongside this, a CPL list is provided to the manufacturer.
Sample CPL
Component placement lists specify the orientation, layer, and position of each component. As PCBA is often automated, coordinates are required for the board house to place components where they should be, and in the correct polarity.
Although we always encourage students to come in and solder by hand, PCBA oftentimes shortcuts potential soldering mistakes, and can save time for board completion at the cost of your pockets.
KiCad, as with most ECAD software, offers automated generation for CPL and BOM files. Though, JLCPCB may complain about formatting and choice of keywords, which is worth taking a look at manually.