Create Solder Paste Stencils with Cricut

Step 2 Preparing your PCB Layout and Determining Dimensions

It may take some trial-and-error to create decent solder paste stencils as the Cricut is not very precise. It cuts rounded edges and ignores shapes smaller than about 18mil(0.46mm) by 50mil (1.27mm). This means you should make sure all your component pads are large than this. To make sure a pad still has enough solder paste area, make the pad longer. The KiCAD EDA Suite's PCB layout program has the ability to change all of a footprint's pads at once. Solder has this amazing property that during reflow it 'finds' metal pieces to link. As long as your PCB has precise solder resist, solder will find metal pieces to link. So don't worry about making pads too large (within reason, say +/- 20%).

You need accurate dimensions of your PCB stencil for later. Use your PCB layout software's distance tool to determine the distance between the outermost component pads. Not the size of the PCB, but the distance between outermost pad edges. In the example below, the PCB has a width of 2.3" but the edge to edge pad distance is 2.142".

In KiCAD, you can measure distances by selecting Drawings from the Layer pull-down menu and clicking the Dimensions button in the right-hand tool menu. It is the 4th button from the bottom.