Tank driver recovery

KiCad Workspace

KiCad 10 is installed locally on this machine.

This folder is the intended home for the hardware project once schematic capture starts.

Planned Contents

• GAS-Hardware.kicad_pro
• GAS-Hardware.kicad_sch
• one schematic file scaffold per board
• board layouts for:
  • input-output
  • tank-driver-recovery
  • ext-tank-routing
  • crossfade-feedback-wet-summing
  • filter-clipper

Current Status

The KiCad project now has a real top-level hierarchical shell, first-pass real symbol capture across every rev-A child sheet, and a first-pass electrically assigned power/backplane page.

What currently exists:

• file naming
• top-level sheet ownership and page ordering
• title blocks
• top-level system notes
• child-sheet interface labels for global rails, I/O boundary nets, inter-board audio nets, and frozen control nets
• first-pass symbol population on every rev-A board sheet
• first-pass DC-entry, rail-generation, and harness-fanout net assignment on power-backplane.kicad_sch
• PCB placement scaffold files for all six rev-A boards, generated from the documented board envelope assumptions
• DRC-clean placement scaffolds with four M3 mounting holes plus all currently assigned schematic footprints per board
• capture sequencing
• validated CLI export workflow
• a manifest-driven audit script for measuring schematic population progress

What does not yet exist:

• real inter-sheet and intra-sheet pin-level wiring on the five audio/control sheets
• clean ERC after the new symbol-only capture phase
• finished footprint assignment inside every schematic page
• routed copper, zones, final component placement, or Gerber/drill fabrication exports for the PCB files

Capture should now key off:

• rev-a-schematic-packets.md [blocked]
• rev-a-electrical-capture-worksheet.md [blocked]
• rev-a-io-schematic-ready-definition.md [blocked]
• rev-a-ext-routing-schematic-ready-definition.md [blocked]
• rev-a-tank-driver-recovery-schematic-ready-definition.md [blocked]
• rev-a-crossfade-feedback-wet-schematic-ready-definition.md [blocked]
• rev-a-filter-clipper-schematic-ready-definition.md [blocked]
• rev-a-control-backplane-schematic-ready-definition.md [blocked]
• rev-a-interconnect-pin-map.md [blocked]
• rev-a-bringup-sequence.md [blocked]
• rev-a-sheet-population-plan.md [blocked]
• rev-a-symbol-manifest.csv [blocked]
• rev-a-net-label-manifest.csv [blocked]

Verification

During this session, the hierarchical top-level shell and all child sheets were accepted by kicad-cli, and the release-export script still produced schematic PDFs successfully after the interface-label pass.

Important current nuance:

• symbol population is intentionally ahead of real wire placement
• kicad-cli sch export pdf still succeeds
• top-level ERC is no longer clean at this intermediate stage because the hierarchical labels are not yet attached to real wires or symbols
• the current ERC result is therefore a known intermediate failure, not a claim that the capture is electrically complete

Current exported folder:

• the historical placeholder export artifact still exists as a file named hardware/kicad/exports

Repeatable release/export helper:

• export-rev-a-release.ps1 [blocked]
• rev-a-release-manifest.csv [blocked]

Repeatable capture-progress audit:

• audit-rev-a-capture.py [blocked]
• rev-a-capture-audit.md [blocked]

Run:

python hardware/kicad/audit-rev-a-capture.py

Current baseline from the latest 2026-06-29 audit:

• top-level hierarchy: 6 / 6 child sheets present
• populated schematic refs: 88 / 88
• explicit manifest net labels: 82 / 82

Current release-export / ERC baseline from the same session:

• capture audit: 88 / 88 planned refs present and 82 / 82 manifest labels present
• top-level ERC: 650 known intermediate violations after the I/O-board center-short cleanup pass on 2026-06-29
• the I/O child sheet dropped from 404 to 376 local violations in the same pass, and its multiple-net-name collisions dropped from 8 to 2
• the remaining I/O multiple-net-name warnings are the intentional WD_L_LO <-> WET_SUM_L and WD_R_LO <-> WET_SUM_R wet-return aliases
• the remaining ERC debt is still dominated by top-level unconnected sheet pins, placeholder wire endpoints, off-grid legacy symbol endpoints, and still-unwired child-sheet labels on the non-power sheets
• the power/backplane page itself still stands as the most electrically assigned sheet, but it is not yet the final ripple-decoupling or chassis-bond implementation

Current PCB scaffold baseline:

• crossfade-feedback-wet.kicad_pcb: 100 mm x 70 mm, 8 electrical footprints, 4x M3 mounting holes, DRC clean
• ext-tank-routing.kicad_pcb: 120 mm x 80 mm, 12 electrical footprints, 4x M3 mounting holes, DRC clean
• filter-clipper.kicad_pcb: 140 mm x 90 mm, 19 electrical footprints, 4x M3 mounting holes, DRC clean
• io-board.kicad_pcb: 160 mm x 75 mm, 50 electrical footprints, 4x M3 mounting holes, DRC clean
• power-backplane.kicad_pcb: 150 mm x 95 mm, 14 electrical footprints, 4x M3 mounting holes, DRC clean
• tank-driver-recovery.kicad_pcb: 170 mm x 110 mm, 11 electrical footprints, 4x M3 mounting holes, DRC clean
• these are placement scaffolds only and are not routed fabrication outputs

Repeatable PCB footprint placement helper:

• place-rev-a-board-footprints.py [blocked]

Current scripted output root:

• hardware/kicad/release-exports/rev-a-release

Order Readiness Gate

Before ordering boards, run:

.\hardware\kicad\test-rev-a-order-readiness.ps1

The gate writes:

• rev-a-order-readiness.md [blocked]
• GAS-Hardware-erc-current.json [blocked]

It intentionally fails while any of these are true:

• no *.kicad_pcb board layout files exist
• top-level ERC has violations
• non-virtual schematic symbols have empty footprint fields
• KiCad/SPICE simulation model properties are absent

The current project is therefore not order-ready. It remains in schematic-capture cleanup before PCB layout, DRC, Gerber/drill export, and simulation setup.

Planned Export Set

• fabrication Gerbers
• drill files
• schematic PDFs
• BOM.csv
• centroid / position files
• assembly drawings
• bring-up and calibration notes