Comment by joshvm
2 months ago
This is a really good use case, though I'd be surprised if there aren't macros to do simple grid layout already in Altium or KiCad. It's the sort of thing you'd find in a badly documented Eagle userscript. I recently made a smaller PCB with 30 LEDs in a specific colour arrangement and even that was a pain by hand.
Jlcpcb, the manufacturer mentioned in the article, has a graphical editor with grid functionality and they even have a JS API if you want to automate PCB changes like arranging LEDs or renaming components.
Yeah I'm not surprised this is a feature in other EDA packages, it's something I'd like to explore more, in combination with OpenSCAD. I've been pretty happy with the few things I've tried from JL, though I'm a longtime supporter of OSHPark and I think their finish/price ratio is still excellent.